On Fox News’s morning broadcast Fox and Friends, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a frequent Fox commentator and presumptive Republican candidate for president in 2012, says of the controversial plans to build an Islamic community center two blocks from the site of the downed World Trade Center: “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There’s no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center.” [Media Matters, 8/16/2010]

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has sex with aspiring Swedish photographer Sofia Wilen. They have sex on the evening of August 16; the sex is consensual, Assange wears a condom, and no criminal complaint will be made about it. However, when they have sex again the next morning Assange does not wear a condom, apparently against Wilen’s wishes. It is this second encounter that will lead to a rape charge being filed against Assange, although he will say the sex was consensual this time as well. [TNN, 12/9/2010]

Sofia Wilen, a Swedish woman whose sexual encounter with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange two days ago will lead to charges being filed against him (see August 16-17, 2010), calls Anna Ardin, another woman who has had sex with Assange that will lead to charges (see August 13, 2010). Wilen says that she has had unprotected sex with Assange and is worried she may have contracted an STD or become pregnant. Ardin tells Wilen that she has also had sex with Assange. The two women moved in related circles before this call, but it is unclear if they knew each other and, if so, how well. [TNN, 12/9/2010] Two days later the two women will go to the police (see August 20, 2010).

Conservative Christian evangelist Franklin Graham says that the “problem” with President Obama is that he was born a Muslim. Graham acknowledges that Obama has long since converted to Christianity. CNN interviewer John King asks Graham if he has doubts about Obama’s Christian faith. Graham replies that much of the “birther” controversy about Obama’s heritage (see October 1, 2007, December 19, 2007, Before October 27, 2008, January 11, 2008, Around March 19, 2008, April 18, 2008, and April 29, 2009) comes from Obama’s supposed birth into the Muslim faith. Graham says that Obama was born a Muslim because his father was a Muslim. “I think the president’s problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim,” he says. “The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name.” Obama’s father named him after himself; Obama has written that while his father was raised Muslim, he was a practicing atheist. “The confusion is, is because his father was a Muslim, he was born a Muslim. The Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs. That’s why [Libyan leader Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi] calls him ‘my son.’ They see him as a Muslim. But of course the president says he is a Christian, and we just have to accept it as that.… Now it’s obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed and he has renounced Islam and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That is what he says he has done, I cannot say that he hasn’t. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said.… [Y]ou can be born a Muslim, you can be born a Jew, but you can’t be born a Christian. The only way you can become a Christian is by confessing your sins to God, asking his forgiveness, and by receiving Jesus Christ by faith into your heart, that Christ died for your sins, shed his blood on Calvary’s Cross, and that God raised him to life. If you’re willing to accept that and believe that, and let Jesus Christ be the lord of your life, God will forgive your sins, he will heal your heart, and that’s the only way you can become a Christian. And so if the president has done that, then I would say he’s a Christian, if that’s what he has done.” Graham has issued denunciations and criticisms of Islam before, many of which have drawn sharp responses. Obama has prayed with Graham and his father, the noted evangelist Billy Graham, at the Grahams’ mountain home in North Carolina. [CNN, 8/19/2010; TPM LiveWire, 8/20/2010]

Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen, two Swedish women WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange recently had sex with (see August 13, 2010 and August 16-17, 2010), go to the Swedish police to complain about him. The complaint will lead to criminal charges being filed against Assange for rape and sexual assault. Ardin and Wilen tell the police of their dealings with Assange, and Ardin says that she was willing to have sex with him, but that, against her wishes, he deliberately broke the condom they were using during sex. Wilen says that Assange wore a condom the first time they had sex, but not the second time, even though she wanted him to use a condom both times. [TNN, 12/9/2010]

Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights logo. [Source: IREHR / Facebook]The Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR) issues a comprehensive, multi-part report on the American “tea party” movement. The report is written by IREHR vice president Devin Burghart and IREHR president Leonard Zeskind, both accomplished authors and researchers. The report examines six national organizational networks which Burghart and Zeskind say are “at the core of the tea party movement.” These six include: the FreedomWorks Tea Party; the 1776 Tea Party (“TeaParty.org”); Tea Party Nation; Tea Party Patriots; ResistNet; and the Tea Party Express. The report examines their origins, structures, leadership, policies, funding, membership, and relations with one another. [Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 8/24/2010]Data Collection Methodology - The authors provide details of their data collection methodology in a separate section of the report. [Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 10/19/2010]Racism, Anti-Semitism Rampant in Many (Not All) Tea Party Organizations - The report explicitly notes that “[i]t would be a mistake to claim that all tea partiers are nativist vigilantes or racists of one stripe or another.” It shows that while tea party organizations, and many media outlets, paint tea partiers as concentrated primarily on “budget deficits, taxes, and the power of the federal government,” in reality many tea party organizations are very focused on racial, nationalist, and other social issues (see January 14, 2010). The report finds: “In these ranks, an abiding obsession with Barack Obama’s birth certificate (see June 13, 2008) is often a stand-in for the belief that the first black president of the United States is not a ‘real American.’ Rather than strict adherence to the Constitution, many tea partiers are challenging the provision for birthright citizenship found in the 14th Amendment.” Many (not all) tea party organizations open their ranks “to anti-Semites, racists, and bigots,” the report finds, and in many of those organizations, the racists and bigots have leadership positions. And, it finds, white supremacist organizations routinely attend and even present at tea party rallies, “looking for potential recruits and hoping to push these (white) protesters towards a more self-conscious and ideological white supremacy.” The report notes that former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke is trying to find money and support among tea party organizations to launch a 2012 bid for the Republican presidential nomination. The leaders of the 1776 Tea Party organization “were imported directly from the anti-immigrant vigilante organization, the Minuteman Project,” the report notes. Tea Party Nation has attracted a large contingent of so-called “birthers,” Christian nationalists, and nativists, many of whom display openly racist sentiments; some other tea party organizations have now distanced themselves from that particular group. ResistNet and Tea Party Patriots, the two largest “umbrella” organizations or networks, are also rife with anti-immigrant nativists and racists; the Tea Party Patriots have openly embraced the idea of the repeal of the 17th Amendment (see April 8, 2010). At least one group, the Washington DC-based FreedomWorks Tea Party, has made some efforts to focus its actions solely on economic issues and eschew social or religious issues; those efforts have largely failed. There is a large and disparate “schema” of racist organizations and belief systems in America, the report notes, from Nazi sympathizers to “America-first isolationists,” “scientific” racists, nativists, “paleoconservatives,” and others. Generally, the more mainstream and less extremist racist movements and persons gravitate to tea party organizations. “[T]he white nationalist movement is divided between two strategic orientations: the go-it-alone vanguardists and the mainstreamers who seek to win a majority following among white people. It is decidedly the mainstreamers, such as the Council of Conservative Citizens… who seek to influence and recruit among the tea partiers.” The same can be said of militia groups: the more mainstream of these organizations are the ones taking part in, and recruiting at, tea party events. The two—racist and militia groups—have, of course, a heavy overlap in membership and belief structures. Tea party leaders and members tend to strongly dispute evidence that their fellows espouse racist beliefs. [Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 8/24/2010; Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 10/19/2010]Economic Beliefs Tied to Anger at Immigrants, 'Undeserving Poor' - The tea parties are most often characterized as anti-tax economic conservatives who oppose government spending; however, the report finds, “there is no observable statistical link between tea party membership and unemployment levels.… And their storied opposition to political and social elites turns out to be predicated on an antagonism to federal assistance to those deemed the ‘undeserving poor.’” Many tea party members and organizations, including some of the movement’s most visible political leaders, are openly anti-immigrant. The House’s Tea Party Caucus, led by Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), has a significant overlap with the members of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, led by tea party supporter Brian Bilbray (R-CA). The Immigration Reform Caucus has introduced legislation that would end the Constitution’s principle of “birthright citizenship.” The racist and anti-immigrant themes at play in many tea party organizations have dovetailed in these organizations’ attacks on President Obama as being a “non-American.” The report observes: “The permutations go on from there: Islamic terrorist, socialist, African witch doctor, lying African, etc. If he is not properly American, then he becomes the ‘other’ that is not ‘us.’ Five of the six national factions have these ‘birthers’ in their leadership; the only exception being FreedomWorks.” 'Nationalism' of Tea Parties - Most tea party organizations hark back to the Revolutionary War era and the Founding Fathers as their forebears, sometimes even dressing in 18th-century costumes, waving the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, and claiming that the US Constitution as written should be the touchstone of all legislative policies. However, the report notes that their “American nationalism” is hardly inclusive: “[T]heirs is an American nationalism that does not always include all Americans. It is a nationalism that excludes those deemed not to be ‘real Americans’; including the native-born children of undocumented immigrants (often despised as ‘anchor babies’), socialists, Moslems, and those not deemed to fit within a ‘Christian nation.’” The report connects the tea parties’ concept of nationalism (see October 19, 2010) back to the “America First” ideology of Father Charles Coughlin, a vocal anti-Semite and supporter of Nazism (see October 3, 1926 - 1942). The report notes: “As the Confederate battle flags, witch doctor caricatures, and demeaning discourse suggest, a bright white line of racism threads through this nationalism. Yet, it is not a full-fledged variety of white nationalism. It is as inchoate as it is super-patriotic. It is possibly an embryo of what it might yet become.” Multi-Million Dollar Complex Heavily Funded by Right-Wing Foundations - The tea party movement presents itself as a loose confederation of ground-up, grassroots groups and organizations put together by principled citizens driven by their political and social concerns. However, the reality is that many tea party organizations are for-profit corporations and/or political action committees, with some equally well-funded non-profit corporations included in the mix. Collectively, they have succeeded at trumping the Democrats’ advantage in Web-based mobilization and fundraising. Resurrection of 'Ultra-Conservative Wing of American Political Life' - The report finds that the tea party organizations “have resuscitated the ultra-conservative wing of American political life, created a stiff pole of opinion within Republican Party ranks, and they have had a devastating impact on thoughtful policy making for the common good, both at the local and state as well as at the federal levels.” The report finds: “The tea party movement has unleashed a still inchoate political movement by angry middle class (overwhelmingly) white people who believe their country, their nation, has been taken from them. And they want it back.” Whom they apparently “want it back” from is from non-white Americans. The report notes that the tea party slogan, “Take It Back, Take Your Country Back” is “an explicitly nationalist refrain. It is sometimes coupled with the assertion that there are ‘real Americans,’ as opposed to others who they believe are driving the country into a socialist ditch.” Three Levels of Structure - As with most entities of this nature, there are three fundamental levels to the “tea party structure.” Some 16 to 18 percent of Americans say they have some sympathy with tea party ideals—these citizens, numbering in the tens of millions, form the outer ring of the structure. The next ring as an ill-defined group of perhaps two million activists who go to meetings and rallies, and buy literature. The core is composed of some 250,000 heavily involved members who take part in the Web-directed activities of the tea party organizations. The report focuses on this group as the hub of what it calls “tea party nationalists.” As time goes on, the tea parties continue to add members to their ranks. The Tea Party Patriots and ResistNet are, at this time, experiencing the fastest rate of growth; the report notes, “This would tend to indicate a larger movement less susceptible to central control, and more likely to attract racist and nativist elements at the local level.” The tea parties as a whole will continue to wield their influence on American political and social debates, though the tea parties may begin to splinter as some members move into the more structured Republican Party apparatus and others move towards the more extremist white nationalist organizations. The report does not include local groups not affiliated with one or the other of the national networks, and the ancillary organizations that have worked alongside the tea parties since their inception. The report notes some of these ancillary organizations as Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty (see August 4, 2008), Americans for Prosperity (see Late 2004), the National Precinct Alliance, and the John Birch Society (JBS—see March 10, 1961 and December 2011). The report also notes the existence of the “9-12 movement” (see March 13, 2009 and After), but does not count that as a separate network, and goes on to note that after the 2009 9-12 rally in Washington (see September 12, 2009), many 9-12 groups joined a tea party organization. [Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 8/24/2010]Response - Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, responds to the release of the IREHR report by saying: “Here we go again. This is typical of this liberal group’s smear tactics.” Phillips does not cite examples of the report’s “smear tactics.” [Kansas City Star, 10/19/2010]

In his foreward to the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights’s (IREHR) multi-part report on the “tea party” movement (see August 24, 2010), NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous draws a sharp distinction between the various leaders and orchestrators of the movement, and its rank-and-file members. “We know the majority of tea party supporters are sincere, principled people of good will,” he begins. Unfortunately, he continues, many tea party leaders are unrepentant racists, with strong ties to white supremacist and far-right militia movements. Jealous asks the leaders and members of the various tea party organizations to “take additional steps to distance themselves from those tea party leaders who espouse racist ideas, advocate violence, or are formally affiliated with white supremacist organizations.” Jealous notes that the delegates to the latest NAACP convention passed a resolution “condemning outspoken racist elements within the tea party, and called upon tea party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use white supremacist language in their signs and speeches, and those tea party leaders who would subvert their own movement by spreading racism” (see July 13, 2010), a resolution triggered by a wave of racist and homophobic attacks on blacks, Democrats, gays, and others by tea party members (see April 15, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 11, 2009, September 2009, September 14, 2009, March 16, 2010, March 20, 2010, March 24-25, 2010, and May 14, 2010). While many tea party leaders defended their organizations’ and members’ actions, or denied them, or called the targets racists themselves (see July 14, 2010), Jealous notes that “tea party leaders began to quietly take steps toward actively policing explicitly racist activity within their ranks” (see March 25, 2010). Perhaps the most visible of these steps, Jealous notes, was the expulsion of Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams for his repeated and inflammatory racist and anti-Muslim statements (see July 17-18, 2010). The Williams expulsion proved three things, Jealous writes: the tea party claims that the movement is too loosely configured to moderate its leaders’ actions were wrong; there exists a demonstrable rift between tea party leaders who espouse racist rhetoric and those who condemn it; and the NAACP resolution had an impact. While the tea party groups were taking some steps to battle racism within their ranks, Jealous notes, various tea party organizations rushed to highlight their relatively few non-white members and proclaim their racial and religious diversity. However, these first steps are not enough, Jealous writes. Many tea party organizations are tied to openly racist groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens, he notes, and concludes that the IREHR report “serves as a cautionary reminder that Mark Williams is not unique within tea party leadesrhip circles and that ties between tea party factions and acknowledged racist groups endure.” [Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 8/24/2010]

Charles and David Koch. [Source: PRWatch (.org)]The New Yorker publishes a lengthy analysis of the Koch (pronounced “coke”) financial empire, and its long-time financial support for right-wing causes (see 1981-2010). The article, written by investigative reporter Jane Mayer, shows that Koch Industries, led by brothers David and Charles Koch, has donated over $250 million to Republican and conservative politicians and organizations since the mid-1990s. The Koch brothers are also well-known philanthropists, having given millions to New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, $100 million to the Lincoln Center’s New York State Theatre building, $40 million to the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, $20 million to the American Museum of Natural History, and $10 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Second-Largest Private Industry in US - Koch Industries, a $100 billion conglomerate, garners most of its profits from oil refineries and associated interests; it owns the firms that manufacture Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber and paper products, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra fabric. Koch Industries is the second largest private company in the US after Cargill, and taken together, the Koch brothers’ fortune of some $35 billion places them just behind Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Wall Street financier Warren Buffett as the nation’s richest people. Longtime Libertarians - Personally, the Koch brothers espouse a libertarian philosophy—drastic reductions in corporate and personal taxes, huge cuts in government expenditures on social services, and widespread deregulation of industry, particularly environmental. Koch Industries was recently listed in the top 10 of US air polluters, and has for years funded organizations that oppose climate change, giving even more than ExxonMobil to organizations, foundations, and think tanks that work to derail or overturn climate change legislation. Koch funds so many different organizations that oppose various initiatives of the Obama administration that Washington insiders call the Koch ideological network the “Kochtopus.” While the Koch brothers have protested being characterized as major supporters of the right-wing agenda—David Koch has complained that the “radical press” is intent on making him and his brother into “whipping boys”—Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, says: “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.” The Kochs have embraced the pure free-market ideology of economist Friedrich von Hayek, who argued that any form of centralized government would lead to totalitarianism and that only complete, unregulated capitalism could ensure freedom. Many “tea party” supporters, such as Fox News host Glenn Beck, have openly embraced von Hayek’s ideals. Inculcated Ideals of Anti-Communist Father - Both brothers are steeped in the anti-Communist, anti-government, minority-disparaging views of their father, Koch Industries co-founder Fred Koch (see 1940 and After). Using the 'Tea Parties' - Conservative economist Bruce Bartlett, who has worked at a Koch-funded think tank, says that the Kochs are playing on the anti-government fervor of the “tea parties” to further their pro-business, libertarian agenda. “The problem with the whole libertarian movement is that it’s been all chiefs and no Indians,” Bartlett says. “There haven’t been any actual people, like voters, who give a crap about it. So the problem for the Kochs has been trying to create a movement.” With the emergence of the “tea parties,” Bartlett says, “everyone suddenly sees that for the first time there are Indians out there—people who can provide real ideological power. [The Kochs are] trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies.” A Republican campaign consultant who has worked for the Kochs says of the tea party movement: “The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It’s like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud—and they’re our candidates!” The consultant says that the Kochs keep an extremely low profile, in part to avoid accusations that they are funding an “astroturf” movement (see April 15, 2009). A former Koch adviser says: “They’re smart. This right-wing, redneck stuff works for them. They see this as a way to get things done without getting dirty themselves.” Democratic political strategist Rob Stein, who has studied the conservative movement’s finances, says the Kochs are “at the epicenter of the anti-Obama movement. But it’s not just about Obama. They would have done the same to Hillary Clinton. They did the same with Bill Clinton. They are out to destroy progressivism.” Since a 2009 rally attended by David Koch (see November 2009), the brothers have all but explicitly endorsed the tea party movement, with David Koch praising it for demonstrating the “powerful visceral hostility in the body politic against the massive increase in government power, the massive efforts to socialize this country.” Echoing the sentiments of many tea party leaders, Charles Koch said in a newsletter sent out to Koch Industry employees that President Obama is comparable to Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. Strategy - Charles Koch told a reporter that “[t]o bring about social change” requires “a strategy” that is “vertically and horizontally integrated,” spanning “from idea creation to policy development to education to grassroots organizations to lobbying to litigation to political action.… We have a radical philosophy.” The Kochs launched their first “think tank,” the libertarian Cato Institute, in 1977 (see 1977-Present), which has been effective in promoting corporate tax cuts, deregulation, cuts in social spending, and in opposing governmental initiatives to combat climate change. Other Koch-funded institutes such as the Heritage Foundation and the Independent Women’s Forum have also publicly opposed efforts to combat climate change. History professor Naomi Oreskes, the author of a book, Merchants of Doubt, that chronicles attempts by American industries to manipulate public opinion on science, says that the Kochs have a vested interest in keeping the government from addressing climate change. “If the answer is to phase out fossil fuels,” she says, “a different group of people are going to be making money, so we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re fighting tooth and nail.” David Koch has said that though he doesn’t believe that any global warming effects have been caused by human activities, if indeed the globe is warming, it will benefit society by lengthening growing seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. Several years after founding Cato, the Kochs provided millions in funding to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, which Stein describes as “ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington.” Mercatus is headed by Richard Fink, a Koch Industries lobbyist and president of several Koch-funded foundations. Mayer describes Fink as the chief political lieutenant of the Koch brothers. Mercatus was quite successful at having the Bush administration adopt a number of its deregulatory strategies, particularly environmental deregulation. Like Cato, critics of Mercatus accuse it of serving the brothers’ corporate needs while hiding behind the facade of a nonpartisan academic organization. “Ideas don’t happen on their own,” says Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, a tea party advocacy group heavily funded by the Kochs (see April 14, 2009). “Throughout history, ideas need patrons.” FreedomWorks is one of many citizen activism groups founded and/or funded by the Kochs, usually masquerading as “grassroots” organizations started by “ordinary citizens” (see 1984 and After, 1997, and Late 2004). Disrupting the Obama Administration - Since well before the 2008 presidential election, the Koch brothers have been involved in full-throated efforts to derail any policies or initiatives that would be launched by a Democratic president. In January 2008, Charles Koch wrote in the industry newsletter that America was on the verge of “the greatest loss of liberty and prosperity since the 1930s.” The Kochs have used their “astroturf” advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), to great effect against the Obama administration, launching its efforts even before the November 2008 election (see October 2008 and January 2009 and After). Conservative activist Grover Norquist says that AFP’s August 2009 anti-health care rallies were instrumental in undermining Obama’s policy initiatives. Norquist says the rallies “discouraged deal-makers,” Republicans who otherwise might have considered cooperating with Obama and Congressional Democrats, and affected corporate donors to Washington lobbyists, steering millions into the hands of Republican lobbyists. [New Yorker, 8/30/2010]

A second retired general serving as a Fox News analyst comes out in support of Lieutenant Colonel Terry Lakin, who has refused to obey orders deploying him to Afghanistan because, Lakin says, he questions President Obama’s citizenship and therefore his right to issue orders to the military. Lakin faces a court-martial for disobeying orders (see Before April 13, 2010 and April 22-23, 2010). Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney joins fellow Fox News analyst, retired Major General Paul Vallely, and a third retired officer, Major General Jerry Curry (see August 2, 2010), in support of Lakin. McInerney says in a statement: “[I]t is my opinion that LTC Lakin’s request for discovery relating to the president’s birth record in Hawaii is absolutely essential to determining not merely his guilt or innocence but to reassuring all military personnel once and for all for this president whether his service as commander in chief is constitutionally proper. He is the one single person in the chain of command that the Constitution demands proof of natural born citizenship. This determination is fundamental to our Republic, where civilian control over the military is the rule. According to the Constitution, the commander is chief must now, in the face of serious—and widely-held—concerns that he is ineligible, either voluntarily establish his eligibility by authorizing release of his birth records or this court must authorize their discovery. The invasion of his privacy is utterly trivial compared to the issues at stake here. Our military MUST have confidence their commander in chief lawfully holds his office and absent which confidence grievous consequences may ensue.” McInerney’s statement is released by the American Patriot Foundation, the “birther” organization raising money for Lakin’s defense. [WorldNetDaily, 8/31/2010; Huffington Post, 9/1/2010]

Stephen Schwarzman. [Source: Time magazine]Stephen Schwarzman, one of Wall Street’s leading hedge fund managers, equates the Obama administration’s plan to levy taxes on the private equity industry as akin to Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland, London’s Daily Telegraph reports. Schwarzman says America faces a “crisis of leadership” that is hindering the nation’s economic recovery. His concerns are echoed by Daniel Loeb, the founder of the Third Point fund, who accuses the Obama administration of attempting to implement economic “redistribution rather than growth.” Loeb decries an April 2010 lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs as “politically laced,” and blames the lawsuit for making investors lose confidence in the economic recovery. Loeb says that “so long as our leaders tell us that we must trust [them] to regulate and redistribute our way back to prosperity, we will not break out of this economic quagmire.” [Daily Telegraph, 8/31/2010]

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) provides a lexicon for some of the terminology used by a variety of “sovereignists” and other anti-government organizations. The SPLC writes, “Adherents of the ‘sovereign citizens’ movement and of sovereign financial scams like ‘redemption’ are known for their bizarre use of language and Byzantine belief system.” Some of this terminology has been adapted for use by more widely known (if barely organized and rather fluidly constructed) groups such as the “birthers,” who have gone from questioning President Obama’s status as a US citizen (see August 1, 2008 and After, October 8-10, 2008, and November 10, 2008) to pushing for Constitutional amendments designed to curtail citizenship rights for the children of immigrants and non-citizens; “tenthers,” who construe the Tenth Amendment to mean that states are not bound by federal laws; and others. The SPLC provides the following terms and definitions: 14th Amendment citizen “Sovereign citizens describe 14th Amendment citizens as subject to federal and state governments, unlike themselves. Because the amendment gave citizenship to freed slaves, a racist variant of sovereign citizen theory holds that blacks are subject to the governments and that being white is a prerequisite to being a sovereign citizen. Others claim all state citizens were converted by the constitutional amendment to ‘Federal Citizens,’ who can only be freed by a process known as ‘asseveration.’” Accepted for value “When a sovereign receives a bill from the IRS, a bank, or even the cable company, under a twisted reading of the Uniform Commercial Code, he believes he can simply write ‘Accepted for Value’ on that bill and it will be paid by his secret Treasury Direct Account, set up by the government when he was born.” Admiralty law/common law “According to sovereign beliefs, there are two types of law: common law and admiralty law. Since the US went off the gold standard in 1933, sovereigns say, no one has been able to pay a debt with ‘real’ money, and therefore the country has been operating under commercial law, which sovereigns equate with admiralty law, the law of the seas. Thus, they argue, completely speciously, that Americans have been deprived of their original common law, under which the government can only impose regulations on citizens with their consent, since 1933.” Bill of Exchange “A fake check used to access the funds in the secret Treasury account supposedly set up by the government to monetize the value of each citizen’s life at birth.” Birth certificate “This form establishes each person’s corporate shell, a kind of evil doppelgänger that is attached to every flesh-and-blood baby. That shell is then supposedly sold by the government as a security to foreign investors to enrich Federal Reserve bankers. The proof that the certificate has secret meaning is found in the use of all capital letters, bond paper, and a seal and/or watermark—all of which are thought to reflect admiralty law.” Citizen/citizen “In the 18th century colonies, nouns were usually capitalized, although the practice was going out of style by the time of the Revolution. Based on that, sovereigns see secret meaning in the use or non-use of capitalized letters. For example, a ‘citizen’ is a sovereign citizen imbued with all natural rights, whereas a ‘Citizen’ is a 14th Amendment citizen subject to the rules and regulations of government.” Common law court “Pseudo-legal courts set up to hear matters concerning sovereign citizens, sometimes also called ‘freemen’ (see 1993-1994). They have been used to put enemies on trial for such offenses as treason, rule on matters of interest to sovereigns and, frequently, to formalize citizens’ declarations of sovereignty, a process often known as asseveration.” Flag fringe “Based on the fact that Navy flags and many other military flags have gold fringe, sovereigns believe the presence of fringe on flags in federal courts isn’t just decorative, but rather proof that the nation is under admiralty law.” Form 1099-OID “Although the IRS uses this form for zero-coupon bonds and collateralized bonds, sovereigns believe that the 1099-OID gives them access to the money in the secret Treasury Direct Account that the government funded at their birth.” Name in all capital letters “JOHN ROBERT DOE, for instance, signifies the corporate shell of a person, as opposed to the flesh-and-blood person.” Name punctuation “John-Robert: Doe signifies a flesh-and-blood person named John-Robert of the family Doe, as opposed to a punctuation-free name, JOHN ROBERT DOE, which refers to the corporate shell of a person.” Negative averment “The trick, used by many sovereigns, of twisting all statements into the form of a question in order to shift the burden of truth to the opponent.” Red ink “In some states, bonds are canceled using red ink. Sovereigns therefore sign many legal documents and correspondence in red ink to signify that they are canceling the bond attached to their birth certificate or corporate self. Others believe the color of the ink represents the blood of the flesh-and-blood person.” Redemption “The phony legal process sovereigns use to separate a person’s flesh-and-blood body from their mythical corporate shell. Since only the corporate shell is subject to taxes, traffic laws, and license requirements, the ability to separate the two is the key to liberating people from such requirements. An added bonus is that the newly freed sovereign can then write checks, or ‘bills of exchange,’ on the account the government has set up to monetize the person’s life and earnings.” Strawman “The label assigned to the corporate shell in the redemption process. This corporate shell is attached to a baby at birth when a birth certificate is typed out using all capital letters and a Social Security number is applied for.” Sui juris “Many sovereigns add this Latin phrase, meaning ‘of one’s own right,’ to their flesh-and-blood names on legal documents to signify that they are reserving all the rights to which a free man is entitled.” Treasury Direct Account “When a baby is born, sovereigns believe that the government funds a secret Treasury account in that baby’s corporate shell name, based on that person’s future earnings. This account can be accessed by writing special checks to pay taxes, mortgage balances, and other debts. Sovereigns variously believe the account’s value is between $600,000 and $20 million.” Truth language “A complex and bizarre set of language rules designed to mimic the secret language of the law. All sentences must start with the preposition ‘for,’ have a minimum of 13 words, and use more nouns than verbs. Punctuation rules are just as complex.” UCC-1 Statement “When a sovereign successfully separates his flesh-and-blood body from his corporate shell in the redemption process, the flesh-and-blood body then can file a UCC-1 statement against their corporate self in order to preserve the value of that corporate self’s Treasury Direct Account for their own use. Since most jurisdictions are getting wise to sovereigns’ UCC games, sovereigns often must shop jurisdictions until they find one willing to file the statement without question.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/2010]

A sign displayed at a tea party protest depicting President Obama as a Muslim and a traitor. [Source: Mother Jones]Tea party founders Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe of the lobbying organization FreedomWorks (see February 16-17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, February 27, 2009, March 2, 2009, March 13, 2009 and After, April 14, 2009, and April 15, 2009) announce the creation of DiverseTea, a project designed to encourage non-whites to become tea party members. Kibbe says DiverseTea will highlight “African Americans, Jews, Hispanics, others that have come to this movement, because there is this nagging perception that we are not diverse.” The Web site DiverseTea invites tea partiers to identify themselves as minorities. As of late September, 13 people have self-identified themselves as “minority” tea partiers, including one who identifies himself as “Welsh.” Dana Milbank of the Washington Post writes that even with its vanishingly small numbers, DiverseTea’s “launch is an acknowledgment that movement leaders are sensitive to the impression that the tea party is largely a coalition of angry, white, Protestant men.” Since its inception, accusations of racism have flown at various tea party members and organizations, a perception that Kibbe and Armey are eager to disperse. However, Armey attacks African-American and Latino communities for taking “reprisals” against minority members who join tea party groups, saying, “The difficulties, the harassment, the intolerance, the abuse that they suffer comes from… your own community, your own relatives, your own family.” But, as Armey informs a Pakistani-American who asks about the tea party’s “xenophobic” attitude towards Muslims, “It’s the most inclusive group of people I know.” [Mother Jones, 9/2010; Washington Post, 9/15/2010]

Mother Jones columnist Kevin Drum compares the “tea party” movement to earlier organizations, each formed, he writes, to oppose Democratic presidencies. “[T]oo many observers mistakenly react to the tea party as if it’s brand new, an organic and spontaneous response to something unique in the current political climate,” he writes. “But it’s not. It’s not a response to the recession or to health care reform or to some kind of spectacular new liberal overreach. It’s what happens whenever a Democrat takes over the White House. When FDR was in office in the 1930s, conservative zealotry coalesced in the Liberty League (see August 23, 1934 and After). When JFK won the presidency in the ‘60s, the John Birch Society flourished (see November 1963). When Bill Clinton ended the Reagan Revolution in the ‘90s, talk radio erupted with the conspiracy theories of the Arkansas Project. And today, with Barack Obama in the Oval Office, it’s the tea party’s turn.” While differences between the various groups are substantive, Drum writes, the similarities are overwhelming. Drum notes that industrialist Fred Koch, an early backer of the Birchers (see 1940 and After), gave way to his sons, David and Charles Koch, who helped launch the organization that would become FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, both of which are major funders and organizers of the tea party movement (see 1979-1980 and 1984 and After). Tea partiers rely on a 50-year-old radical reinterpretation of the Constitution, W. Cleon Skousen’s The 5000 Year Leap; Skousen’s anti-Communist polemics were popular with the Birchers. And Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society (JBS—see March 10, 1961 and December 2011), believed that the 17th Amendment, which affirms the direct election of US senators, was what Drum calls “a poisonous concentration of power in the federal government.” Tea partiers and Fox News hosts hawk this same theory today (see October 16, 2009, April 8, 2010, and June 11, 2010). Drum writes that, far from being motivated by personal economic hardship (tea party supporters tend to be more affluent and less affected by the economic downturn than the average American—see April 14, 2010) or even because of a dislike of President Obama because of his race, the tea party exists because “[e]ver since the 1930s, something very much like the tea party movement has fluoresced every time a Democrat wins the presidency, and the nature of the fluorescence always follows many of the same broad contours: a reverence for the Constitution, a supposedly spontaneous uprising of formerly nonpolitical middle-class activists, a preoccupation with socialism and the expanding tyranny of big government, a bitterness toward an underclass viewed as unwilling to work, and a weakness for outlandish conspiracy theories.” Constitutional 'Purity' - One similarity is the focus of each group on what they term the “purity” or “sanctity” of the US Constitution, even as they apply their sometimes-radical reinterpretations of constitutional mandates. “The Liberty Leaguers… spoke of it with ‘worshipful intensity,’” Drum writes. “The John Birch Society—which is enjoying a renaissance of sorts today (see July 22, 2007, August 4, 2008, October 10, 2008, April 13, 2009, April 19, 2010, and August 24, 2010)—says of itself, ‘From its earliest days the John Birch Society has emphasized the importance of the Constitution for securing our freedom.’ And… study groups dedicated to the Constitution have mushroomed among tea partiers” (see May 2010). Fear of 'Creeping Socialism' and Tyranny - Drum writes: “Other shared tropes include a fear of ‘losing the country we grew up in,’ an obsession with ‘parasites’ who are leeching off of hardworking Americans, and—even though they’ve always received copious assistance from business interests and political operatives—a myth that the movement is composed entirely of fed-up grassroots amateurs” (see 1984 and After, Late 2004, January 2009 and After, February 17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, March 13, 2009 and After, April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, July 3-4, 2010, and August 30, 2010). Above all, though, is the recurring theme of “creeping socialism and a federal government that’s destroying our freedoms.” The American Liberty League fought to stop the Roosevelt administration from establishing Social Security, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and what Drum calls an “alphabet soup of new regulatory agencies.” In the 1960s, the John Birch Society (JBS) felt the government was being overrun by Communism and “collectivism.” Drum notes that JBS founder Robert Welch’s mantra, “Less government and more responsibility,” echoes central tenets of tea party beliefs. In the 1990s, then-Representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) became House Speaker in large part because of his opposition to the Clinton administration and his leadership in the right’s battle to defund federal social-net programs. Today, tea partiers echo the JBS in their insistence that Obama is a closet Marxist or socialist, and echo fears from earlier groups that Obama, the Democrat, intends to turn American democracy into a tyranny. Conspiracy Theories - Drum echoes conservative writer Jonathan Kay by noting the tea partiers’ “insatiable appetite for conspiracy theories” (see February 4-8, 2010). Welch argued that the federal government was bowing to Communist manipulation by fluoridating the water supply (see 1945 and After), but more importantly, promoted the idea that a mysterious group of “insiders” had been running the world since at least 1776, when the Illuminati took over most European governments. The “insiders” continued their influence, Welch avowed, through the years, taking over France after the French Revolution, Russia and other nations after the advent of Communism, and continued to exercise control through such organs as the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission. The same groups are at the center of many conspiracy theories embraced by numerous tea partiers. Drum points out the fondness of the “anti-Clinton zealots” for their “colorful and ever-growing bestiary of shadowy plots,” most surrounding their belief that Clinton was a rapist, a murderer, and a drug peddler. Similar conspiracy theories were promulgated by the JBS about John Kennedy. “Today’s conspiracy theories are different in detail but no less wacky—and no less widespread,” Drum writes. The “birther” conspiracy theory, which holds that Obama is not a natural-born citizen, is quite popular with tea party supporters, and many more believe that Obama intends to place conservatives such as themselves in internment camps, a theory peddled by the JBS in the early 1960s. And many believe that ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the now-defunct community service organization, somehow took control of the Democratic Party, destroyed banks by forcing them to make loans to indigent minorities, crashed the economy, and installed Obama into power. Effectiveness Improving over Time - Drum writes that each iteration of this right-wing phenomenon is more successful than the last. The Liberty League made no impact whatsoever on President Roosevelt’s 1936 re-election attempt. In 1964, the JBS succeeded in helping right-wing libertarian candidate Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) win the Republican presidential nomination. In the 1990s, Gingrich rode the wave of far-right activism to become speaker of the House, and the activism culminated in the impeachment of President Clinton and the election of President George W. Bush. Drum predicts that the latest wave, the tea party movement, will for all intents and purposes take over the Republican Party. In each iteration, moderate Republicans resisted the wave of right-wing change, but, Drum believes, not enough moderate Republicans exist in any position of power to resist the tea party transformation. The GOP has been shifting ever rightward since the 1970s, Drum notes, and the tea party movement has profited from a transformed media environment, where it can present its ideology almost nonstop on Fox News and rely on social media such as Facebook to connect with new recruits. Drum calls the paradigm shift “the mainstreaming of extremism.” In 1961, Time magazine disparaged the JBS as “tiresome” (see March 10, 1961); in 2009, it hailed Fox News personality Glenn Beck as “gifted.” Moderates have virtually no chance in today’s environment of pushing back against the tea party’s rightward surge. “Unlike the Birchers, or even the Clinton conspiracy theorists, the tea partiers aren’t a fringe part of the conservative movement,” Drum writes. “They are the conservative movement.” Drum believes that even with all the tea party’s current success, it will eventually burn itself out, “while its broader identity becomes subsumed by a Republican Party that’s been headed down the path of ever less-tolerant conservatism for decades. In that sense, the tea party movement is merely an unusually flamboyant symptom of an illness that’s been breeding for a long time.” [Mother Jones, 9/2010]

Fox Business Channel host and commentator John Stossel writes a column for NewsMax attacking the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA—see July 26, 1990), claiming that the legislation places an undue burden of compliance on businesses. [NewsMax, 9/1/2010] The ADA was sponsored by Congressional Democrats and signed into law by then-President George H. W. Bush. The ADA “prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodation, communications, and governmental activities.” Recently, it has been attacked by conservative pundits and candidates, largely because businesses have to spend money to comply with the act’s mandates. [Media Matters, 9/7/2010; US Department of Labor, 2011] Stossel makes some dubious claims, such as describing a restaurant having to allow a customer to bring in a “large snake” as a “service animal,” and saying huge lawsuits are being filed because mirrors are placed one inch too low or too high. Stossel calls the ADA “well-intentioned” and “popular with Republicans and Democrats,” but cites a study purporting to show that employment of the disabled actually decreased after the ADA went into effect, and explains that this occurred because “the law turns ‘protected’ people into potential lawsuits. Most ADA litigation occurs when an employee is fired, so the safest way to avoid those costs is not to hire the disabled in the first place.” Stossel cites Walter Olson of the conservative/libertarian Cato Institute as calling the ADA “unnecessary,” and, using Olson’s rationale, writes: “Under the ADA… fairness does not mean treating disabled people the same as non-disabled people. Rather it means accommodating them. In other words, the law requires that people be treated unequally.” Stossel also claims the ADA “unleashed a landslide of lawsuits by ‘professional litigants’ who file a hundred suits at a time. Disabled people visit businesses to look for violations, but instead of simply asking that a violation be corrected, they partner with lawyers who (legally) extort settlement money from the businesses.” Instead of helping disabled people, Stossel says, the law merely provides “[m]ore money for the parasites.” [NewsMax, 9/1/2010] Republican candidate Rand Paul has made similar claims (see May 17, 2010), as has conservative columnist Ross Douthat (see July 29, 2010).

An Army judge denies a request by defense lawyers to compel President Obama’s testimony in a court-martial against a US Army flight surgeon who refused to deploy to Afghanistan until he saw proof that Obama was born in the United States (see Before April 13, 2010 and April 22-23, 2010). Colonel Denise Lind, the judge presiding over the upcoming court-martial, says evidence or witnesses related to Obama’s citizenship are irrelevant to the case against Lieutenant Colonel Terry Lakin. Lakin is charged with missing a movement, disobeying a lawful order, and dereliction of duty. He faces a dishonorable discharge, two years’ imprisonment in a military prison, and a forfeiture of his pay if convicted. Lakin’s lawyers are contending that all military orders stem from the commander in chief. Without evidence that Obama is eligible to be president, they say, the doctor’s deployment order was illegal. Lakin’s civilian attorney, Paul Jensen, has asked Lind to order Obama’s official birth records from Hawaii be brought to court for trial (see June 13, 2008 and July 1, 2009). “If the president is ineligible, you need to know that,” Jensen tells Lind. “Colonel Lakin needs to know that, the government needs to know that, America needs to know that.” The prosecution contends that Obama’s eligibility is irrelevant because Lakin defied orders from his superior officers in the military chain of command, a point Jensen concedes. Lind rules that the matter of Obama’s eligibility is not relevant because he did not give any orders in the case, and notes that while the president is commander in chief of the military, it is Congress that is constitutionally empowered to raise armies, pay them, and equip them. Any contention that any orders are invalid if the president is ineligible “is erroneous,” she says. She also notes that military law says that a soldier’s personal beliefs or convictions are not sufficient to allow that soldier to determine that an order is illegal. The soldier has to have “no rational doubt” that the order is illegal before he or she can ignore it. Finally, she rules that a military court-martial is not the forum in which to determine a president’s eligibility, because the Constitution says only Congress has the power to impeach and remove the president. Jensen says the ruling “completely deprives us of any opportunity to present a defense in this case,” and says he intends to file a motion with the Army Court of Criminal Appeals to have Lind’s ruling overturned. [CNN, 9/2/2010]

Jason Priest, a Republican candidate for a Montana State Senate position, makes a vulgar anti-gay comment on Facebook in response to a post about President Obama’s economic policies. On his campaign Web site, Priest says he is in favor of “less divisive politics” and promises to “contribute to a respectful discussion of our challenges.” However, on Facebook, Priest responds to a comment made by another poster that accused economist John Maynard Keynes of being gay by writing: “Since Keynes was a big homo if he’s fondling your b_lls it probably means you’re getting a reach around which is way better than what Obama is giving America. We are all getting the dry thumb.” [Jason Priest, 9/2010; Montana Cowgirl Blog, 9/2/2010; Matt Singer, 9/3/2010; Great Falls Tribune, 9/4/2010] Priest later issues the following statement: “Recently I posted a comment online that was offensive to some of those who read it. My passion for controlling spending overcame my better judgment, and my crude metaphor understandably detracted from the point of my comment. It was a poor choice of words, and I apologize to anyone I have offended.” Montana blogger Matt Singer notes that Priest has stated on his own Facebook page that “when Republicans lie down with Democrats, Americans get fleas,” and says that Priest’s remarks prove he is quite divisive and homophobic. Another blogger who posts under the moniker “Montana Cowgirl” says, “This is not the conduct of someone that would be a Montana State Senator.” Montana human rights organizer Kim Abbott says of Priest’s comments: “When someone who is running for elective office is using anti-gay slurs and questionable judgment about what they say in the public sphere—and I think we can all agree that new media is public—it’s problematic.… I’m glad that he recognized that an apology was in order, but it’s still upsetting that this is in his day-to-day dialogue. The fact that he would use a slur like ‘big homo’ is problematic for a candidate who wants to represent an entire district at the capitol.” [Montana Cowgirl Blog, 9/2/2010; John S. Adams, 9/2/2010; Matt Singer, 9/3/2010; Great Falls Tribune, 9/4/2010]

A Fox Business Channel host says America’s unions are “the antithesis of freedom.” The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, was designed “to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices.” For years, conservative and Republican candidates and organizations have fought against unions’ rights to bargain collectively, in part because labor unions are a critical element of the center-left “progressive” coalition in American politics. [Media Matters, 9/7/2010; Board, 2011] A regular segment on Fox News is titled, “Unions: Can America Afford Them?” [Fox News, 2011] Fox News host Glenn Beck often calls union workers “thugs” and/or “enforcers.” [Media Matters, 9/7/2010] A Fox Business Channel (FBC) commentator calls labor unions “the antithesis of freedom,” and says that while “fortunately” private sector unions “have retreated,” public sector unions are still a “problem.” Stuart Varney, a guest of Andrew Napolitano on Freedom Watch and host of Varney and Company on FBC, says that unions have been “a disaster for the British economy,” and continues: “They are the antithesis of freedom. They impose rigid workplace rules that have no place in a modern economy.” Later, Varney says: “Fortunately, unions have retreated in the private sector. It is in the public sector where they rule, and that is the nature of some of our problems.” He adds that “taxpayers” and “the concept of freedom and liberty” “suffer” from the existence of unions. [Media Matters, 9/4/2010; Media Matters, 9/7/2010] The same day, on his own show, Varney accuses a union advocate of “siding” with America’s “enemies” (see September 4, 2010).

Fox Business Channel host Stuart Varney, appearing on Fox News’s ‘The O’Reilly Factor.’ [Source: Salt 'em All (.com)]A Fox Business Channel host attacks a union representative for “sid[ing] with [America’s] enemies” by advocating for the rights of workers to organize. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, was designed “to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices.” For years, conservative and Republican candidates and organizations have fought against unions’ rights to bargain collectively, in part because labor unions are a critical element of the center-left “progressive” coalition in American politics. [Media Matters, 9/7/2010; Board, 2011] A regular segment on Fox News is titled “Unions: Can America Afford Them?” [Fox News, 2011] Fox News host Glenn Beck often calls union workers “thugs” and/or “enforcers.” [Media Matters, 9/7/2010] Stuart Varney, host of Varney and Company on the Fox Business Channel, attacks a union representative on his show for “sid[ing] with our enemies” against America. Varney opens by telling Bruce Raynor of the pro-union group Workers United: “I was shocked and angered by the idea that my government in America would link our behavior in America vis-a-vis unions, and link it to some kinds of human rights abuse. Say it ain’t so. You can’t be serious.” Varney is referring to a recent State Department report that calls for strengthening labor unions in order to combat workplace abuses by employers. Raynor begins by informing Varney that “millions of American workers today have no right to organize a union,” and Varney immediately attempts to cut him off by saying that all workers have “every right” to organize, a claim that is flatly untrue. Raynore cites examples of public workers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and other states who are prohibited by law from forming unions; Varney then contends that the lack of a right to organize is not, as the State Department report claims, a human rights abuse. Raynor contends that it is indeed an abuse of human rights. Varney then accuses Raynor and the State Department of attempting to “embarrass this great country” by taking this report to the United Nations “and put us in the same league as North Korea.” Raynor calls the right to organize part of Americans’ constitutional right to free association. Varney then begins to shout Raynor down, saying: “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?” Raynor attempts to counter with the fact that over 20 states have laws forbidding certain groups of workers from organizing in unions, and notes that drivers for Federal Express, one of the largest private employers in the US, are forbidden to join or organize unions, while drivers for United Parcel Express (UPS) do have that right. Varney calls Raynor’s examples “little” and “tiny” that mean nothing in a larger sense, and storms: “You now say that this great democracy abuses human rights. That’s embarrassing, sir.” Raynor continues to cite examples of workers who lack the right to organize, and Varney disputes the accuracy of Raynor’s facts, trying to dispute the fact of law with Raynor over workers’ rights to organize. Raynor says that every organization except for the military should have the right to organize, but many of them do not. The United States, Raynor says, “is the hardest country in the free world to organize unions.” Varney, clearly indignant, accuses Raynor of “report[ing] us to the United Nations, a den of thieves, and you say” the US is abusing its citizens’ rights. Varney begins shouting again, accusing Raynor of “embarrassing” the United States by “bringing a public spotlight,” and says: “You have sided with our enemies. You’re in the same camp as our enemies. That’s disgraceful.” Raynor attempts to deny the allegation, and Varney concludes the interview, saying, “I’m sorry, we must agree to differ, but that, sir, is disgraceful.” [Media Matters, 9/4/2010; Media Matters, 9/7/2010]

Tim Ravndal, the head of the Big Sky Tea Party Association, apologizes for comments he made on his Facebook page that many interpreted as condoning the murder of homosexuals (see July 23, 2010). Ravndal later removed the comments, but they were preserved in a screenshot and published in the Great Falls Tribune. In the original comments, Ravndal seemed to approve of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming college student targeted for being gay. Ravndal says he “never made the connection” to Shepard’s murder until after it became the focus of blog posts and comments in recent days. “I wasn’t even thinking about the tragedy that happened in Wyoming,” he says. “I made a mistake and I apologize to anyone I offended. I do not condone violence to any human being.” Ravndal adds that his Facebook page is personal, and has nothing to do with the Big Sky Tea Party Association. Montana human rights organizer Kim Abbott is unimpressed by Ravndal’s apology. “Mr. Ravndal’s comments are outrageous,” she says. “He is a public figure, in the public sphere, condoning and making light of violence against gay people. It’s actually pretty frightening.” [Great Falls Tribune, 9/4/2010] Apparently Ravndal’s apology is insufficient; within days of his apology, he will be fired from his leadership post. [Associated Press, 9/8/2010] The organization’s secretary, Kristi Allen-Gailushas, who is a Republican candidate for the Montana state senate, defends Ravndal in a post to his Facebook page, writing: “No matter what you guys say, ’Tim is a great American and patriot.’ He does have a right to say what he wants. I know that he didn’t mean it, but in the heat of his anger with the ACLU might not have realized what he was saying. The people who are in the TEA party movement are called names all of the time. Racist, extremist… you name it. Tolerance needs to be done on both sides, especially the homosexual side. ’There isn’t any tolerance for people who have a different opinion than yours.’ If we say yes to gay marriage, where does it stop? The people who want to have more than one spouse will be next and that is against the law. The definition of marriage is between a man and a woman, are we now going to change the definition?” (All emphases from the original.) Allen-Gailushas will later post on Facebook, “The Gay community wants a war… they’ve got one!!” She later adds a clarification: “I didn’t mean a literal gun war, but a war of the truth and the hypocrisy they espouse.” [Think Progress, 9/7/2010]

Talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who recently promised to leave the airwaves after repeatedly using the racial slur “n_igger” in conversation with an African-American woman (see August 10-18, 2010), claims that she is being persecuted by critics who refuse to accept her apology for her use of such slurs. On her show, she says she has been “sitting shiva” (a reference to Jewish funeral rites) for a month while “the hounds of fury misinterpret [and] misrepresent her apology as well as [her] decision” to leave the airwaves at the end of 2010. She cites black activist Reverend Al Sharpton, radio host Howard Stern, black comic Wanda Sykes, the liberal media watchdog organization Media Matters (see August 13, 2010), the NAACP, the National Urban League, and others for “pelting me with insults[,] calling me a racist,” and celebrating her imminent departure. She denies that she is leaving radio so she can make racial slurs with impunity, as she says her critics have implied she is doing. [Media Matters, 9/7/2010]

Talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who recently promised to leave the airwaves after repeatedly using the racial slur “n_igger” in conversation with an African-American woman (see August 10-18, 2010), says that an organization calling for advertisers to boycott her show is perpetuating Nazi tactics to “persecute” her. Schlessinger is referring to progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters, which issued a statement calling for the boycott in the days after she made her now-infamous broadcast (see August 13, 2010). She calls Media Matters and other critics “ultra-liberals,” and says “small interest groups” (presumably African-Americans) “supported and aided by political parties” (presumably Democrats) are working to supplant government-sanctioned freedom of speech with “the right not to be offended.” “That’s how it started in Germany,” she says. “That’s how it started in Communist China. That’s how it is right now in Iran.” She adds that “the thought police” are in full hue and cry after her. [Media Matters, 9/8/2010] The day before, Schlessinger claimed she was being “persecuted” by liberal and African-American critics (see September 7, 2010).

A tea party member masquerading as President Obama pretends to whip a ‘future taxpayer’ during a parade in Washington State. [Source: KXLY-TV]During the annual Sportsman’s Day parade in Naches, Washington State, a tea party group called “Remember Us We The People” displays a float that many area residents find “offensive and in bad taste.” The group, an affiliate of the national Tea Party Patriots, displays a float that looks like a Radio Flyer wagon, pulled behind a truck. People inside the truck display signs that say, among other slogans, “ObamaCare,” “Healthcare Takeover,” and “Wasted Tax Money.” On the float itself is a man in a shirt, tie, and a President Obama mask. In one hand he carries a sign reading: “Hey Kids! Thanks for paying ou[r] debt!” In the other hand he cracks a whip over a teenager who is pretending to pull the wagon; the teen wears a shirt reading, “Future Tax Payer.” Event organizers later say they receive numerous complaints, some of which point out that the depiction evoked racial stereotypes from the slavery era. One local resident says of the float: “It certainly came across as very racist to me, and really bad manners, bottom line, lack of manners.… A lack of respect for our presidency and our government, just everything down the line, it was really quite disturbing.” The president of the tea party organization, Kirk Groenig, says the float “maybe” went “a little too far,” and claims that his group is being victimized by groundless accusations of racism, saying, “When they don’t like your message, they try to deem you as racist, that’s really unfortunate.” Local Lions Club president John Miles disagrees, saying, “There’s respect for the position [of the presidency] and I think [Groenig] exceeded any good taste in his group’s presentation.” Another resident says that the tea party group may have lost its message due to its extreme presentation: “If you have people… thinking it was racist and not liking the message as it was promoted, then I would say you’re not too effective.” James Parks, the head of the Yakima County NAACP chapter, says the float is “sad” but not necessarily racist: “A lot of people will see it in different ways. I don’t see it as being racist. It’s more… about the economy. If the economy was better, I don’t think we would have all these things happening. I think there are better ways for people to protest what’s going on in the government.” Groenig’s group intends to display the float in an upcoming parade. The application to display it during the Sportsman’s Day parade claimed that the float was an attempt to “attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with core values of America, fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free market enterprise.” [KXLY-TV, 9/13/2010; Yakima Herald-Republic, 9/13/2010; Think Progress, 9/14/2010]

An anti-health care reform sign at the 9/12 rally depicting President Obama as a witch doctor, and combining the Obama 2008 campaign logo with the Soviet hammer and sickle. [Source: CNN]A large number of “tea party” activists and followers gather at the Washington Monument for a march and a rally. The protest rally, organized by the lobbying organization FreedomWorks and a number of national and local tea party organizations, is designed to show the size and efficacy of the “tea party” movement as the November midterm elections approach. Real estate broker Catherine Childers of Florida tells a reporter: “The average American has been asleep at the wheel. We think it’s time the silent majority starts speaking up.” “Today we are gathering to remind Congress and the president that we are fed up with their big-government policies,” says Brendan Steinhauser, a FreedomWorks spokesman. “They have ignored independent voters and have continued to spend our tax dollars in a wasteful and inefficient way. Because the bailouts and the growth of the federal government have continued, we are now more determined then ever to replace those in power with leaders that will put an end to the failed economic policies of the current Congress.” The featured speakers include FreedomWorks head Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader; Representative Mike Pence (R-IN); and conservative bloggers Andrew Breitbart and Erick Erickson. The rally is associated with the “9/12 Movement” promoted by Fox News host Glenn Beck, but Beck is not at this rally; he held a rally of his own two weeks ago. Whereas Beck’s rally deliberately toned down political rhetoric, this rally is determinedly political. Initial estimates show that the number of protesters is far smaller than the number who attended a similar rally a year ago (see September 12, 2009). Reporter Evan McMorris-Santoro, writing for the progressive news blog Talking Points Memo, writes that he sees “[a]bout five” minority members on stage and none in the crowd. [Washington Post, 9/12/2010; TPMDC, 9/12/2010; TPMDC, 9/12/2010] Some of the signs carried by rally participants include comparisons between “Obamacare” and “slavery”; threats to “burn your Koran” and the launch of “Quiet Jihad” against Muslims; references to “Imam Obama”; claims that Obama and Congressional Democrats are “traitors” who should be executed; claims that Obama is a Communist; and one poster that depicts Obama as a number of African-American personages, including rappers, Jesus Christ, and TV’s “Steve Urkel.” [Tea Party Tracker, 9/12/2010]

A portion of the Forbes magazine cover featuring Dinesh D’Souza’s article on President Obama. [Source: Forbes magazine / PBS]In a cover story for Forbes magazine, conservative author and pundit Dinesh D’Souza claims that President Obama is using the Oval Office to pursue Kenyan anti-colonial policies once advocated by his father, Barack Obama Sr., a Harvard-trained economist and Luo tribesman from Kenya. D’Souza has a long history of race-baiting and using inflammatory rhetoric (see March 15, 1982, October 1982, October 4, 1990, and June 5, 2004). [Forbes, 9/27/2010] The story is loosely based on D’Souza’s upcoming book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage. [Washington Post, 9/16/2010] It is dated September 27, 2010, but is published on the Internet two weeks earlier. After tarring Obama as “the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history” and a strong advocate of expanding the federal government into all aspects of America’s commercial existence, D’Souza turns to his perception of Obama’s “strange” foreign policy. He cites several instances of Obama’s stated intention to reach out to Muslims across the globe, calling these initiatives “anomal[ies],” and proposes an explanation: Obama does not hold to the American dream, in any form, but instead hews to what D’Souza characterizes as the “Kenyan” dreams of his father, who D’Souza says was a champion of anticolonialism. The elder Obama advocated that native Kenyans “control the economic means of growth” in their country, D’Souza quotes him as writing in 1965, and also wrote, “We need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now.” Obama, D’Souza writes, is following his father’s policies in his governance. “It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the president of the United States,” D’Souza writes. “That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America’s military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father’s position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America’s power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe’s resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet. For Obama, the solutions are simple. He must work to wring the neocolonialism out of America and the West. And here is where our anticolonial understanding of Obama really takes off, because it provides a vital key to explaining not only his major policy actions but also the little details that no other theory can adequately account for.” D’Souza cites Obama’s support for offshore oil drilling in Brazil, his support for repealing the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, and his refusal to consider nationalizing American financial or health care institutions as “evidence” that he intends “to decolonize these institutions, [to bring] them under the government’s leash.” D’Souza goes even farther, accusing Obama of idolizing the 9/11 terrorists as anticolonial heroes whose acts were justified by their ideology; D’Souza cites Obama’s support for the building of a Muslim community center several blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, and his support for the release of one of the Lockerbie bombers on medical grounds, as “evidence” of his favoring of Islamist terrorists. Finally, D’Souza cites the statements of one of Obama’s grandfather’s wives, Sarah Obama, and Obama’s own writings about weeping at his father’s grave in Kenya as conclusive evidence of Obama’s secret anticolonial ideology. “Obama takes on his father’s struggle, not by recovering his body but by embracing his cause,” D’Souza writes. “He decides that where Obama Sr. failed, he will succeed. Obama Sr.‘s hatred of the colonial system becomes Obama Jr.‘s hatred; his botched attempt to set the world right defines his son’s objective. Through a kind of sacramental rite at the family tomb, the father’s struggle becomes the son’s birthright.” D’Souza calls colonialism a “dead issue,” and terms Obama “the last anticolonial.” [Forbes, 9/27/2010] Many conservatives have long accused Obama of being un-American because of his Kenyan ancestry (see February 25, 2008, August 1, 2008 and After, October 8-10, 2008, June 25, 2009, June 29, 2009, and August 11, 2009). D’Souza’s article will be lambasted by a wide swath of media figures (see September 12, 2010 and After) and will be shown to be riddled with factual errors (see September 16, 2010). It will be praised by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is widely believed to be pursuing the 2012 Republican presidential nomination (see September 12, 2010 and After). [Media Matters, 9/12/2010]

Kathleen Parker, a conservative columnist who is highly critical of the Forbes article depicting President Obama as a ‘Kenyan sympathizer.’ [Source: Crooks and Liars]Forbes Magazine encounters a firestorm of criticism due to its publication of a cover story alleging President Obama is driven by “anti-colonial” sentiments garnered from his Kenyan father (see September 12, 2010). The story was written by Dinesh D’Souza, a prominent conservative author and pundit, and has been praised and reiterated by conservative politician Newt Gingrich (see September 12, 2010 and After). White House: 'New Low' for Forbes - White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says of the article: “It’s a stunning thing, to see a publication you would see in a dentist’s office, so lacking in truth and fact. I think it represents a new low.” He asks, “Did they not fact-check this at all, or did they fact-check it and just willfully ignore it?” In response, the magazine releases a statement saying: “Dinesh D’Souza’s cover story was presented as an analysis of how the president thinks. No facts are in contention. Forbes stands by the story.” D’Souza says that his article is based on a “psychological theory,” but insists, “the idea that Obama has roots that are foreign is not an allegation, it’s a statement of fact.” Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz notes that Obama’s father abandoned his family when Obama was two years old, and Obama only saw his father once more after that. Gibbs says that D’Souza’s article is another illustration of the fact that there is “no limit to innuendo” against the president. Forbes, he says, “left the facts on the cutting-room floor.” [Washington Post, 9/16/2010]Columbia Journalism Review: 'Singularly Disgusting' and 'Racist' - The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) calls the D’Souza article “a fact-twisting, error-laden piece of paranoia” and “the worst kind of smear journalism—a singularly disgusting work.” Reviewer Ryan Chittum writes: “Forbes for some reason gives Dinesh D’Souza the cover and lots of space to froth about the notion popular in the right-wing fever swamps that Obama is an ‘other’; that he doesn’t think like ‘an American,’ that his actions benefit foreigners rather than Amurricans. It’s too kind to call this innuendo. It’s far too overt for that.… This is loathsome stuff. And, again, it’s the cover story of one of the three big mainstream financial magazines.” Chittum continues: “The veneer of respectability, if you can call it that, that D’Souza and Forbes put on this noxious near-McCarthyite junk is that Obama is an ‘anticolonialist.’ It’s thin gruel. And, hey—I’m an anticolonialist, too. And so were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the rest of the gang.” He concludes, “Forbes has shamed itself with this one.” [Columbia Journalism Review, 9/13/2010] D’Souza responds to the CJR review by accusing Chittum of being one of what he calls the “confirmed Obamorons, who are only satisfied with hosannas and genuflections before the Anoin[t]ed One.” Chittum responds with a more detailed dissection of the lies, errors, and misinformation in the article, and concludes: “D’Souza denies in his blog post that the piece is racist, but of course it is. Indeed, it’s racist at its rotten core. That’s the whole point. You can’t write stuff like ‘Incredibly, the US is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s,’ and credibly assert that it’s not racist.… That Forbes gave the cover of its mainstream magazine to this piece will be a black mark on its reputation for a long, long time.” [Columbia Journalism Review, 9/16/2010]Washington Post Columnist: 'Big Gob of Gibberish' - Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson calls D’Souza’s article “a big gob of gibberish,” reading like something written by “one of those conspiracy theorists who believe the CIA is controlling our brain waves.” The article “makes assertion after assertion that is plainly, demonstrably unsupported,” he continues. [Washington Post, 9/14/2010]Post Columnist: 'There's Nothing Here of Any Benefit' - Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker says that D’Souza has “jump[ed] the shark” with his article, and asks sarcastically: “What’s next? Obama is an extraterrestrial pod deposited on Planet Earth to occupy a human shell and get elected leader of the free world so that he can lull the population into complacent dependency in advance of a full invasion of body snatchers?” She labels the article a “Republican revenge fantasy” and concludes: “It’s time to move on, gentlemen. There’s nothing here of any benefit, whatsoever.” [Washington Post, 9/15/2010]Media Matters: 'Completely Ridiculous' - The progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters calls D’Souza’s arguments “completely ridiculous… an impressive combination of factual distortions and twisted logic.” [Media Matters, 9/12/2010] Author Eric Boehlert, a Media Matters contributor, asks if Forbes believes so strongly in the story as to give it the cover, why won’t the magazine defend it? He writes: “I think the Obama cover story has done extraordinary damage to the Forbes brand. But I’d actually respect the magazine if someone—anyone—on staff in a position of power had the courage to come forward and be held accountable for, or even try to argue on behalf of, the D’Souza train wreck.” [Media Matters, 9/16/2010]

Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker and an apparent candidate for the presidency in 2012, tells the conservative National Review that President Obama only pretends to be a “normal” American, but in reality is driven by his belief in “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.” Gingrich cites a recent article by conservative author Dinesh D’Souza (see September 12, 2010), calling D’Souza’s insight into Obama’s behavior “stunning… [the] most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.… What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.… This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president. I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating—none of which was true.… In the Alinksy [Saul Alinsky, a liberal community organizer] tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve.… He was authentically dishonest.” The progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters calls Gingrich’s comments the latest in a long line of “not-so-subtle race baiting” by right-wing media figures. Gingrich is a frequent guest on Fox News. [Media Matters, 9/12/2010] White House press secretary Robert Gibbs accuses Gingrich of “trying to appeal to the fringe.” In response, Gingrich tells the Daily Caller that his own remarks “seemed to touch some kind of irrational nerve on the left.” [Washington Post, 9/16/2010] Days later, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson asks if Gingrich is “just pretending to have lost his mind, or has he actually gone around the bend?” Robinson answers his own question: “His lunacy certainly seems genuine enough. It’s one thing to be a rhetorical bomb-thrower, as Gingrich has long fancied himself, and another to lob damp squibs of pure nonsense into the fray. The man’s contributions to the public discourse have become increasingly unhinged.” Robinson calls Gingrich’s assertions about Obama’s supposed “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior” “bizarre.” If Gingrich is indeed rational, Robinson continues, then he is probably attempting to promote the “birther” conspiracy theory that Obama is not a US citizen, but instead “foreign, exotic, alien, somehow not American.” Moreover, Gingrich is trying to promote a much larger conspiracy theory: “that American democracy—indeed, the whole Anglo-American-Judeo-Christian enterprise—is under attack in a titanic clash of civilizations. In this view, we are threatened most acutely by the Islamic civilization. But we must also be on guard against the ‘Sinic’ civilization of China, the ‘Hindu’ civilization of India, and assorted others. This analysis was developed by Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard professor who died in 2008—and who said he never intended his work to be read as a battle plan. Gingrich seems to believe that our culture and values are also threatened from within—by black and brown people who demand that they, too, be given a voice in defining that culture and those values.” [Washington Post, 9/14/2010] Post media observer Howard Kurtz observes on Twitter that he is “amazed that Newt Gingrich said Obama has a Kenyan view of politics. Not exactly subtle.” [Media Matters, 9/13/2010] Many conservatives have long accused Obama of being un-American because of his Kenyan ancestry (see February 25, 2008, August 1, 2008 and After, October 8-10, 2008, June 29, 2009, and August 11, 2009).

ALL’s ‘Deadly Dozen’ poster. [Source: Pro Ecclesia (.com)]The anti-abortion advocacy organization American Life League (ALL) releases another in a series of “Deadly Dozen” ad campaigns. The first, in 1995, targeted a dozen abortion and health care providers, and was subsequently blamed for a spate of deadly violence against those named in the ads (see 1995 and After). In 2003, ALL launched a second “Deadly Dozen” campaign, this time targeting US senators (see January - April 2003). The current round of ads features a poster listing a dozen Catholic lawmakers, including members of Congress and of the Obama administration. The list includes Vice President Joseph Biden (D-DE); Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis; Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius; Interior Secretary Ken Salazar; Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD); and Representatives Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rosa DeLaurio (D-CT), and Mike Castle (R-DE). As with ALL’s 2003 campaign, the current campaign calls on the named lawmakers’ community bishops to deny them communion. The ad concludes with the slogan, “You can’t be Catholic and pro-abortion!” A blogger in Delaware reports seeing the poster in the vestibule of his church. [Jay Anderson, 9/13/2010]

Delaware Republican Party chairman Tom Ross receives a death threat over his support for incumbent Mike Castle (R-DE) in the upcoming Delaware Senate primaries. Castle, a House member widely considered to be a moderate Republican (see June 30, 2009), is opposed by Christine O’Donnell, a hard-right Republican who has received the support of several area “tea party” organizations. Ross receives an email telling him that he deserves “a bullet in the head” for backing “political _ss-kissing RINO’s” [Republicans in name only]. The email continues: “It is one thing to have your country screwed over by socialists, it is far worse to be backstabbed by people pretending to be your friends. We will either rid the GOP of pieces of sh_t like you, or we will start a new ‘Common Sense Conservative’ party and render you all useless.” Ross leaves his home temporarily in fear for his life, and the US Department of Justice mounts an investigation. The email contains the name and address of the sender, though that information will not be made public. “It is just scary what is going on right now,” says a Delaware Republican Party official. “Tom is a loyal and dedicated Republican officer in Delaware… the position is unpaid and his job as party chairman is to defend and promote the candidates.… It is disgusting, it is amazing, and it has no place in our democracy.” In a statement, O’Donnell’s campaign condemns the threat, saying, “We hope Mr. Ross and his family are safe, as no one should have to go through personal attacks like this.” Reporter Sam Stein concludes: “Coming at the end of an emotional and hard-fought campaign, it’s difficult to gauge both the purpose and the fallout of the death threat. If confirmed as both serious and sincere, it provides yet another piece of evidence that recently politics has veered into something more troubling than previously seen. O’Donnell supporters, undoubtedly, will be skeptical of the story’s emergence at this late stage of the primary fight, noting that Castle is the primary beneficiary if her candidacy is seen as inspiring political intolerance, if not downright violence.” [Huffington Post, 9/13/2010; Politico, 9/14/2010] Ross has been highly critical of O’Donnell’s campaign, stating that Delaware voters “are laughing” at her (see November 15, 2007), and has said that if she wins the primary, she is almost certain to lose against her Democratic opponent, county executive Chris Coons, in the November elections. Tea Party Express chairwoman Amy Kremer, of Sacramento, California, says of Ross’s criticisms: “Can you imagine the mess Tom Ross will have created when he is Delaware Republican Party chairman on Tuesday night when Christine O’Donnell becomes the Republican nominee for US Senate? It’s unacceptable, and Tom Ross must quit or be fired immediately. He is a walking disaster.” Current polls show Castle and O’Donnell in a statistical dead heat. O’Donnell has the support of several right-wing conservative groups, including the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group founded by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC). [Gannett News Service, 9/5/2010; Politico, 9/13/2010] Recent reports have shown that O’Donnell has raised little money within Delaware, but has benefited greatly from “tea party” and other fundraising on her behalf in other states. [Gannett News Service, 9/5/2010] O’Donnell will win the Delaware primary. Castle will call the campaign the most unpleasant of his career. [USA Today, 9/5/2010]

The left-leaning periodical Counterpunch publishes an article by Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett saying that Anna Ardin, a woman who has made sexual assault allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (see August 20, 2010), is indirectly linked to the CIA. Towards the end of a long article with a tone of contempt for the allegations against Assange, Shamir and Bennett comment that Ardin is a politcal opponent of former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and has published articles attacking the Cuban communist regime. The publisher of Ardin’s articles is apparently linked to the Union Liberal Cubana, run by the CIA-connected Carlos Alberto Montaner. Ardin has also visited—and been deported from—Cuba, where she interacted with the feminist anti-Castro Las Damas de Blanco organization, which receives funds from the US government and is linked to the convicted anti-communist terrorist Luis Posada. [CounterPunch, 9/14/2010] The allegations will later receive much attention on the Internet and be picked up by Internet news publication Raw Story. [Raw Story, 12/6/2010]

US Commission on Civil Rights logo. [Source: US Commission on Civil Rights]The US Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) hosts its national conference in Washington. The conference is being boycotted by a number of civil rights organizations because, they say, the organization has become a “sham” operated by conservatives hostile to civil rights. “I’m not attending the conference. I think it’s a sham,” Wade Henderson, president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said two days ago. The USSCR was created in 1957 to oppose racial discrimination against African-Americans and has traditionally been associated with a pro-civil rights record. However, the Bush administration stacked it with conservatives opposed to civil rights; in recent years, the organization has spent much of its time pursuing charges of “reverse racism,” defending racial profiling, and opposing measures designed to grant equal rights to gay and lesbian citizens. The conference hosts panel discussions on how family structure perpetuates racial and ethnic disparities; how education reform can address community issues; whether legal tactics for combating discrimination should be combined with other tactics; and whether the commission should continue operations after this year. Henderson says that since this is the last year for the Bush-era conservatives to dominate the organization, they, particularly Chairman Gerald Reynolds, are mounting a final attempt to implement their agenda. “This is Gerald Reynolds’ last ditch effort to give legitimacy and luster to his failed tenure,” Henderson says. [TPM Muckraker, 9/13/2010; TPM Muckraker, 9/14/2010] In the days before the conference, Reynolds said the federal government should cut back its efforts to combat discrimination, and leave such efforts to local governments and private organizations. [Washington Times, 9/10/2010; TPM Muckraker, 9/13/2010] The conference will be dominated by speakers from conservative organizations, many of which explicitly oppose civil rights. All of the panels will be hosted by commission conservatives; one Democratic commission nominee, Michael Yaki, issues a statement condemning the decision to disallow Democrats to host panels, and says the entire conference promises to be “woefully short on civil rights.” Yaki says, “The topics are extremely narrow and do not begin to address the issues raised in the 21st century—such as immigration backlash on our Hispanic community, Islamophobia since 9/11, gay and lesbian rights, just to name a few—much less those issues that still linger from the last 50 years since the commission’s inception.” [TPM Muckraker, 9/13/2010; TPM Muckraker, 9/14/2010]

Christine O’Donnell. [Source: Fox News]Republican pundit Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, discusses the recent primary victory of US Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell (R-DE—see September 13, 2010) with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. Palin advises O’Donnell to use Fox News, and only Fox, to get her message out. O’Reilly notes that GOP strategist Karl Rove, who has been critical of O’Donnell’s candidacy, has said O’Donnell is unprepared to talk to moderate voters about her often-extremist positions, and thusly, her staff has been reluctant to appear on news programs such as his O’Reilly Factor. Palin says this is the wrong course, and compares O’Donnell’s campaign to her own 2008 campaign for vice president when her advisers told her to stay away from the media. “She’s going to have to learn very quickly to dismiss what her handlers want,” Palin says. “Go with her gut, get out there speak to the American people, speak through Fox News.” [Wilmington News Journal, 9/16/2010] Shortly thereafter, O’Donnell cancels a scheduled appearance on the September 19 edition of CBS’s Face the Nation, with no explanation. “They just emailed us and said she needed to cancel,” says the show’s executive producer, Mary Hager. Politico’s Ben Smith speculates that O’Donnell “may now be heeding the advice bestowed earlier this week by Sarah Palin: ‘Speak through Fox.’” Smith also notes that O’Donnell has drawn fire for her extreme comments on a variety of subjects, from condom use to her stated belief that scientists have inserted human brains into mice (see November 15, 2007). [Politico, 9/16/2010]

The progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters disproves a number of “factual” claims in a recent article by conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, who claims that President Obama is driven by “anticolonial” rage sparked by his alleged identification with his Kenyan father (see September 12, 2010). Media Matters notes the following: D’Souza claims that Obama “supported the conditional release” of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the “Lockerbie Bomber,” because he sees al-Megrahi as a “fellow anticolonialist,” when in reality the Obama administration informed Scotland that it opposed al-Megrahi’s release. D’Souza claims that Obama supports “oil drilling off the coast of Brazil but not in America,” in the form of a $2 billion Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank loan to Brazil for exploratory drilling. In reality, the Obama administration had no say in the Ex-Im’s decision, and all five members of the bank’s board of directors were Bush administration appointees. (Forbes will conduct a fact-check after publication that garners harsh criticism from the bank over D’Souza’s misrepresentation of facts—see September 23-24, 2010.) D’Souza claims that Obama spent the first 17 years of his life “in Hawaii, Indonesia, and Pakistan.” D’Souza admits that he erred in this claim, as Obama never visited Pakistan until he was 20, and then only for three weeks. D’Souza claims that Obama’s June 2010 speech in response to the Gulf oil spill did not focus on cleanup strategies, but instead lambasted the US for its outsized oil consumption. While Obama did mention America’s disproportionate oil consumption, the central focus of his speech was the federal government’s response to the spill. (Forbes will correct this error and acknowledge that Obama’s speech indeed focused on cleaning up the oil spill—see September 23-24, 2010.) D’Souza claims that the 2009 economic stimulus (see November 18, 2008, February 10, 2009, February 13, 2009, February 17, 2009, February 23, 2009, February 28, 2009, March 9, 2009, April 9, 2009, April 16, 2009, June 9, 2009, and August 9, 2009) failed to reduce unemployment; the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has stated that unemployment would be as much as 1.8 percent higher without the stimulus, numbering up to 3.3 million people who would not have jobs. Private analysts such as the Council of Economic Advisers agree with the CBO’s assessment. D’Souza claims that a controversial New York City Islamic center, which he calls a “mosque,” is to be built “near the site where terrorists in the name of Islam brought down the World Trade Center… at Ground Zero.” In reality, the proposed Islamic community center, Cordoba House (later renamed Park51), is two city blocks away from the site of the World Trade Center. D’Souza claims Obama does not believe in “American exceptionalism,” and says that Obama’s dreams are not “the American dreams,” but “something else… certainly not the American dream as conceived by the founders.” In reality, Obama has said time and again that he unequivocally believes in American exceptionalism, and has repeatedly stated his pride in being an American. D’Souza claims that Obama sees his father as a “hero” who “represented a great and noble cause.” In reality, Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father, offered a largely critical portrait of Obama’s father. As Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz notes, “[T]hat book describes a young man’s struggle to understand his African roots and the father he never really knew, and offers a largely critical portrait of the Harvard-educated man who left his family.” Media Matters cites numerous other historians and reviewers who read Obama’s memoir as being highly critical of his father. As Reason Magazine’s Tim Cavanaugh wrote on the day D’Souza’s article was published, the memoir is “a narrative of Obama’s non-relationship with his father,” and continued, “[T]here is no evidence for the claim that the elder Obama bequeathed his son a coherent or even a partial political philosophy.” D’Souza claims that Obama opposes US military action in Afghanistan, because of his “anticolonial” bent. In reality, Obama campaigned on the idea that the US invasion of Afghanistan was an “absolutely vital” response to 9/11, and has made statements to that effect as far back as October 2001. As president, Obama has increased troop levels in Afghanistan and has said that US “security is at stake in Afghanistan.” D’Souza claims that Obama views “free market” as “code words for economic plunder,” saying that Obama views “the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America.” In reality, Obama has repeatedly praised the free market, and has consistently supported America’s large and small businesses in his economic policies. [Media Matters, 9/16/2010]

Glen Urquhart. [Source: Glen Urquhart for Congress]The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) releases a video showing Delaware Republican primary winner Glen Urquhart (R-DE) comparing believers in the separation of church and state to Nazis. Urquhart is running for the House seat vacated by moderate Republican Mike Castle (R-DE), who lost a contentious Delaware Senate primary to right-wing candidate Christine O’Donnell (see September 13, 2010). Both O’Donnell and Urquhart are backed by state and national “tea party” organizations. The DCCC is attempting to portray O’Donnell, Urquhart, and others as right-wing extremists. The video shows Urquhart speaking directly to the cameras, saying that the idea of the separation of church and state originated not with the Founding Fathers, but with Adolf Hitler: “Do you know, where does this phrase separation of church and state come from? Does anybody know?… Actually, that’s exactly, it was not in [Thomas] Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. He was reassuring that the federal government wouldn’t trample on their religion. The exact phrase ‘separation of church and state’ came out of Adolf Hitler’s mouth, that’s where it comes from. Next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of church and state ask them why they’re Nazis.” Urquhart’s spokesman David Anderson says the candidate has repeatedly apologized for the remarks, and says Urquhart “believes 100 percent in religious freedom for all Americans.” He was merely speaking out against what he calls the “oppression of religious freedom in the name of separation of church and state.… The phrase he used was unfortunate, and he apologized for it.” [The Hill, 9/17/2010; CBS News, 9/17/2010] CBS News notes that Jefferson indeed used the phrase “separation of church and state” in his letter to the Danbury, Connecticut, Baptist Association, writing, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church & state.” [CBS News, 9/17/2010; Jefferson, 9/17/2010]

Shikha Dalmia. [Source: Hip Hop Republican (.com)]Forbes columnist Shikha Dalmia, a senior analyst at the conservative Reason Foundation, lambasts a recent article in Forbes by conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, in which D’Souza claimed President Obama is secretly driven by a pro-Kenyan, anti-colonial world view (see September 12, 2010). Dalmia writes with some sardonicism, “Writers these days are supposed to cultivate a niche, and D’Souza seems to have homesteaded the intellectual goofiness spot all for himself.” Even most right-wing pundits, Dalmia observes, have refused to countenance D’Souza’s tract, with the notable exception of Fox News’s Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich (see September 12, 2010 and After). She briefly recounts some of the many factual errors, misrepresentations, and outright lies that fill D’Souza’s article (see September 16, 2010), and then takes issue with one of D’Souza’s central theses: that Obama is trying to help poorer countries at the expense of the American economy. Dalmia writes: “If Obama were seriously motivated by a moral desire to protect poor countries from being ruined by excessive American consumption then his biggest priority would be to rein in this consumption. But that is the exact opposite of what he has done since assuming office. His entire economic agenda is one big and desperate attempt to boost American consumption. He propped up financial institutions and increased government oversight of them not to use them as a tool for some future global redistribution—or ‘decolonization’—as D’Souza bizarrely suggests, but for far more mundane purposes: making easy credit available for American businesses to grow their way out of the recession. Likewise, the notorious cash-for-clunkers program was nothing if not a scheme to stimulate auto consumption. And ObamaCare’s individual mandate practically forces Americans to consume more health care. All of this seems more in line with Keynesian stimulation—rather than Kenyan anti-colonialism.… D’Souza’s thesis is so obviously flawed that one has to wonder what caused him to propose it. Accusing Obama of Keynesiasm or socialism or crony-capitalism—as the rest of us Obama critics are doing—is damning enough. Why does D’Souza need to go further?” Dalmia concludes by pointing out that D’Souza seems to obsess over the polygamy among the Kenyan members of Obama’s family. In what Dalmia calls D’Souza’s “repeated… gratuitous digs” at the practice, she asks, “What is the point of this except to remind Americans that Obama is a Muslim—the most dreaded of ‘others’?” Dalmia concludes: “Ultimately, D’Souza’s rumination reveals less about how Obama thinks and more about how D’Souza thinks. It shows not that Obama is motivated by malice toward America, but D’Souza is motivated by malice toward Obama. How pathetic.” [Forbes, 9/17/2010]

Nevada Republican Sharron Angle, running for the US Senate against Harry Reid (D-NV), urges her supporters in Utah to “take out” Reid. In January, Angle told a conservative radio host that someone should “take him [Reid] out” by “Second Amendment remedies,” which most observers took to mean by the use of firearms (see January 2010). Angle later withdrew her statement and said she meant “take him out of office” (see June 30, 2010). She said she had “changed her rhetoric” and would not use the term again. Angle restates her comment to say she wants to “defeat” Reid in the November election: “In Nevada, we understand we have the opportunity to take out—to defeat,” she says, drawing laughter. “I really have had to find a whole new vocabulary since the primaries.… The first thing we need to do is to defeat Harry Reid. That defeat will send a shock wave through Congress. It will let them know that this train is coming. They can either get on board or get run over by it.” Angle’s speech is part of a larger conference called “Utah United” that draws some 400 conservatives from Utah and the surrounding area, many of whom are self-described “tea party” members. The conference is sponsored by, among others: the far-right extremist John Birch Society (see March 10, 1961 and December 2011), the Eagle Forum, the National Center for Constitutional Studies, and the Utah Farm Bureau. Angle is one of several hard-right GOP candidates at the conference. She has the support of the national Tea Party Express, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, and the Club for Growth, a conservative group credited with aiding the ouster of incumbent US Senator Bob Bennett (R-UT) in last spring’s GOP primary. (Last summer, Angle said that Bennett had “outlived his usefulness” to the Republican Party.) Reid campaign spokesman Jon Summers says that Angle is “trolling for support anywhere she can get it because she’s not getting it from Nevadans. While she’s seeking every out-of-state endorsement she can get, Senator Reid has the support of more than 200 Nevada Republican leaders as well as law enforcement and business leaders, just to name a few. Nevadans are rejecting Sharron Angle because of her extreme agenda to kill Social Security, privatize the Veterans Administration, and ship 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, just outside of Las Vegas.” Of Angle’s urging that someone “take out” Reid, Angle campaign spokeswoman Lee Rech says the statement “was just a slip.” Angle meant that she hoped to “retire” Reid from the Senate. [Salt Lake Tribune, 9/18/2010; Huffington Post, 9/19/2010]

Jack Burkman, in a 2005 appearance on MSNBC. [Source: Postman Patel (.com)]In a debate on Fox News over whether the Post Office should continue to exist, Republican strategist Jack Burkman, who favors privatizing postal services, opens his remarks by saying most postal workers “should be driving cabs, and I think we should stop importing labor from Nigeria and Ethiopia, that’s about the skill level—they’re only in there because of massive union protection.” Attorney Tamara Holder chides Burkman for his “somewhat racist comments” about African immigrants, prompting Burkman to shout, “That’s crazy!” and laugh over Holder’s statement. Burkman reiterates his comment about “unskilled labor[ers]” driving taxicabs, and restates his opposition to the country “importing labor to drive cabs.” Former Republican Senator Alfonse D’Amato (R-NY) lambasts Burkman for his racism. “You are a nasty racist,” D’Amato says, and continues: “You brought in the fact that it’s a bunch of Nigerians.… Let me just tell you. That’s a bunch of bullsh_t. And you should be ashamed of yourself and have your mouth washed out. What the hell are you talking about?” When Burkman tries to interject, “We are importing—” D’Amato shouts over him, “It’s one thing to say that they’re out of control—wait a minute, shut up, I listened to your racist bullsh_t—it’s one thing to say that they’re hiring people who are unskilled, that they’re—that you can save money, that you can run it better, that it is inefficient, ineffective, and I agree to all of those things, but for you to bring in this bullsh_t about, oh, a bunch of Nigerians, etc., it’s out of line.” At this point, both Burkman and host Eric Bolling attempt to talk over D’Amato, but he refuses to stop speaking, adding: “And you hurt the cause, you hurt the cause, you hurt the cause of saying, ‘Guess what? A combination of private/public—a private/public partnership could do much better than what is being done now.’” Bolling allows Burkman to have the final word, and Burkman restates his contention that the Post Office employs “unskilled labor who should have been pushed down because of market reasons,” but who have had protection from unions and government; Bolling does not reiterate his statements about importing Nigerians and Ethiopians to perform unskilled tasks. [AmericaBlog, 9/18/2010]

Author Jerome Corsi (see August 1, 2008 and After, August 15, 2008, October 8, 2008, October 9, 2008, and July 21, 2009) alleges that President Obama stole the identity of a “natural born” American citizen and is “using someone else’s Social Security number.” Speaking to WorldNetDaily’s Taking America Back 2010 convention in Miami, Corsi tells the audience: “People say Barack Obama is an ‘undocumented worker’ in the White House. Well, partly that’s true. But you know what he really is. This is a case of identity theft. Barack Obama has stolen the identity of a natural-born citizen and is using the passport—I’m sorry, he’s using the Social Security number of someone who was issued that card, was issued to in Connecticut. Barack Obama never lived in Connecticut. He wasn’t in Connecticut at the time that card was issued. And the identity theft experts tell us that the card was issued first to somebody else. Why is Barack Obama using somebody else’s Social Security number? This is a case of identity theft.” Corsi offers no evidence to support his claim. [Media Matters, 9/21/2010]

Jim Russell. [Source: SourceWatch (.org)]The New York State Republican Party denounces a Republican candidate for the House after learning that he has espoused racist and anti-Semitic views. Jim Russell, who represents the GOP in the 18th District of New York State race against incumbent Nita Lowey (D-NY), wrote an article for Occidental Quarterly around 10 years ago that stated his opposition to “miscegnation” (“mixing” of different races) and criticized the assault on the “Western continuum” by Jews, blacks, and other minorities. He also praised the anti-Semitic theories of poet T.S. Eliot, quoting Eliot’s belief that “the population should be homogeneous” and the need for “eugenics” to protect “the West” from minority infiltration. “While liberals and universalists constantly yammer about ‘bringing us all together,’” he wrote, “and how ‘diversity is our strength,’ it may be suggested that the biological function of human language and culture is just the opposite, that is, to keep discrete groups apart.” The article was posted on Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke’s Web site, though it has recently been removed. New York GOP spokesman Alex Carey says “[t]here are kooks attracted to any parties,” and adds that Russell’s decision to run as a Republican has nothing to do with the Republican Party or Republican principles. Carey says state GOP leaders were not aware of Russell’s essay, and says, “We strongly condemn all of Jim’s comments and certainly stand by none of what he wrote, which was racist and ethnocentric.” The Westchester County GOP chairman will meet with Russell soon, Carey says, “and if he can explain this somehow they’re going to continue looking into this—and if he can’t they’ll cut him loose.” Carey acknowledges that even if the GOP drops Russell from its line on the ballot, Russell will still be a candidate. Russell is running on a campaign platform opposing immigration and a housing desegretation settlement in Westchester; he has said Westchester’s “neighborhoods have to be protected” from desegregation. In his 2001 article, he called desegretation “destructive.” Russell’s campaign manager, Frank Morgenthaler, says the scrutiny on Russell’s racial views is “mud-slinging.” Morgenthaler adds: “We’re in a situation now where our country is on the brink of death almost. That’s a heck of a lot more important than any articles or any spin that the incumbents want to put on it.” [Salon, 9/20/2010; Politico, 9/20/2010; Salon, 9/21/2010] Russell is considered a longshot candidate. [Politico, 9/20/2010]

Stephen Broden (R-TX), a candidate for the US Congress favored by area “tea parties,” tells an interviewer that he would not rule out the violent overthrow of the US government if the upcoming elections do not produce a change in leadership. Broden is referring to the upcoming midterm elections, which some predict will turn control of the House and/or Senate to the Republicans; he is challenging incumbent Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX). Broden, a pastor from Dallas, responds to a question about a “tea party” event in Fort Worth in 2009 where he called the Obama administration “tyrannical.” He then said of the administration: “We have a constitutional remedy. And the Framers say if that don’t work, revolution.” Asked if he specifically meant the violent overthrow of the federal government, he says the way to deal with a repressive government is to “alter it or abolish it.” He then notes that the US was founded by an armed insurrection against the British government, and says: “If the government is not producing the results or has become destructive to the ends of our liberties, we have a right to get rid of that government and to get rid of it by any means necessary.… The option [of violent overthrow] is on the table. I don’t think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms. However, it is not the first option.” Dallas County GOP chairman Jonathan Neeman says Broden’s remarks are “inappropriate,” and calls them “a disappointing, isolated incident.” Dallas Tea Party organizer Ken Emanuelson, a Broden supporter, says he agrees with Broden’s statement in theory, but adds: “Do I see our government today anywhere close to that point? No, I don’t.” Broden also backpedals on claims he has previously made, including that the Obama administration “contrived” the economic crisis, and retreats from remarks characterizing Obama and other Democratic leaders as “enemies” who must be resisted in the same way that Jews should have resisted “walking into the furnaces” under the Nazi regime. Broden says his previous comparisons of Obama to Hitler, and the Obama administration to Nazis, were mistakes. [Dallas Morning News, 10/22/2010] Broden, an African-American with little name recognition outside the Dallas Republican Party, has strong ties to white conservatives, has ties to political organizations sponsored by Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck, and was recently endorsed by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R-AK). According to an analysis of his statements by the Dallas Observer, “Broden preaches that all of the nation’s ills are the product of conspiratorial plotting by an evil ‘other,’ which he variously describes as Marxists, Fabian socialists, atheists, and ‘Darwin atheists.’” [Dallas Observer, 10/28/2010] Broden will lose the election to Johnson. [Dallas Examiner, 11/3/2010]

A virulent anti-gay post on a gay rights blog comes from the office of Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), according to that office. Hours after Senate Republicans blocked a vote on repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy regarding gays in the service, a poster only identifying himself as “Jimmy” visits the gay rights blog Joe.My.God and posts, “All f_ggots must die.” Blog owner Joe Jervis, a gay rights activist, checks the IP (Internet protocol) address of the commenter and finds that it comes from a US Senate address in Atlanta, Georgia. The office of Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the comment did not come from his office. Chambliss’s office responds with the following statement: “We have seen the allegations and are moving quickly to understand the facts. This office has not and will not tolerate any activity of the sort alleged. Once we have ascertained whether these claims are true, we will take the appropriate steps.” [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 9/21/2010; Joe Jervis, 9/21/2010; TPM Muckraker, 9/22/2010] The day after the post is made, Chambliss issues a statement admitting that the post came from his office, though his staff has not yet determined who made it. Chambliss’s office makes the admission to a Journal-Constitution reporter, and says it has turned the matter over to the Senate’s sergeant at arms. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 9/22/2010; TPM Muckraker, 9/22/2010] Days later, Chambliss will fire the staffer, though he will continue to withhold the staffer’s identity. “The office of the Senate sergeant at arms has concluded its investigation, and I responded to that report immediately with the removal of a member of my staff,” Chambliss says in a statement. “I have called Mr. Jervis, the blog’s author, and apologized to him personally, and I am sorry for the hurt this incident has caused. Regardless of one’s position on issues and policies, such comments are simply unacceptable, are not befitting those who work in the US Senate, and I will not tolerate them from my staff.” [TPM Muckraker, 9/30/2010]

Forbes Magazine, after weathering weeks of intense criticism for its recent cover story by conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza alleging that President Obama is driven by “Kenyan anticolonialism” (see September 12, 2010 and September 12, 2010 and After), agrees to an unusual post-publication fact-checking process to see if, as many have alleged, many of D’Souza’s allegations are erroneous (see September 16, 2010). The agreement was reached after Forbes’s Washington bureau chief met with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, though Forbes spokeswoman Monie Begley says the decision to fact-check the article was made because of the “general clamor in the news media” and not because of White House pressure. [New York Times, 9/24/2010] During the meeting, Gibbs asked the bureau chief if the magazine bothered to fact-check D’Souza’s article. [Media Matters, 9/25/2010] Forbes has already issued one minor correction to the article on its Web site, noting that D’Souza had “slightly misquoted” President Obama in a speech he’d made about the Gulf oil spill; D’Souza claimed that Obama did not focus on “cleanup strategies,” but Forbes now acknowledges that “Obama’s speech did discuss concrete measures to investigate the oil spill and bring it under control.” D’Souza’s article was drawn from an upcoming book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage, to be published by conservative publishing house Regnery on October 4; Regnery publicist Kathleen Sweetapple says in a statement, “[T]here are a couple of minor errors that are completely inconsequential; what the critics are fuming about are not factual errors but disagreements of interpretation.” Forbes staffers contact the Export-Import Bank to check D’Souza’s claim that the Obama administration had directly supported the bank’s decision to lend $2 billion to Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil company, for offshore drilling. D’Souza wrote that Obama supported the deal “not so oil ends up in the US. He is funding Brazilian exploration so that the oil can stay in Brazil.” Observers have noted that Obama had no say in the bank’s decision, and all five of the bank’s board of directors are Bush-era appointees. As part of the bank’s response, senior vice president Kevin Varney posts a comment on D’Souza’s blog highly critical of the author’s decision not to contact the bank before publishing the article. “I received a call yesterday from Nathan Verdi, a fact checker at Forbes, who was calling to fact check your article after it was published,” Varney writes. ”(Is this how journalism works now?)” Varney tells a New York Times reporter that the Petrobras loan “was begun in 2008 with career staffers and approved in 2009 by five Bush-appointed board members.” Deals such as this one, Varney continues, do not usually rise to the level of presidential awareness. For D’Souza to cite the deal as evidence of “an anticolonial, Kenyan ideology” on Obama’s part is “preposterous, it’s false, and it’s wrong.” [New York Times, 9/24/2010]

Excerpt from the opening credits of ‘Fire from the Heartland.’ [Source: Adrienne Royer]A new political film from conservative activist group Citizens United labels President Obama a “gangsta,” and compares him to a Chicago mobster. The film, titled Fire from the Heartland: the Awakening of the Conservative Woman, is ostensibly a celebration of conservative women, but spends much of its runtime attacking Obama and his administration’s policies. The film is written, directed, and co-produced by Stephen Bannon, who co-founded the National Tea Party Federation in April in part to combat charges that tea party organizations promote racism (see June 30, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 4, 2009, and August 11, 2009). The film profiles 15 female conservative politicians, pundits, and tea party activists, including Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, S.E. Cupp, Dana Loesch, Michelle Easton, Sonnie Johnson, Jenny Beth Martin, Michelle Moore, Jamie Radtke, Deneen Borelli, Janine Turner, and House members Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Michele Bachmann (R-MN). Bannon says that the goal of the film is for moderate and independent women viewers to watch the film and then say, “[T]hese women are not the crazy harridans they are portrayed as on TV.” The film quotes African-American conservative Sonnie Johnson, the president of the black conservative Frederick Douglass Foundation, as saying, “If you come from the street… you know Obama has a lot of gangsta in him.” Johnson, a prominent member of Virginia tea party organizations, is using a slang term for “gangster,” indicating that Obama is similar to African-American street criminals who belong to gangs such as the Crips and the Bloods. Johnson’s characterization is echoed in the film by Bachmann, who says, “This administration has embraced something called gangster government.” Bannon juxtaposes the two women’s comments with black and white footage of African-American gangsters with guns. One segment of the film shows a convenience store clerk being robbed at gunpoint; reporter Garance Franke-Ruta writes that “the narrative makes clear the man with the gun embodies the government.” [Plum Line, 9/24/2010]

Tim Wise (L) and Laura Flanders during their interview. [Source: GRIT TV / Nation of Change (.org)]Progressive author and columnist Laura Flanders interviews author and activist Tim Wise, an expert on white supremacist ideology and movements. They begin by discussing President Obama’s incremental, “race-neutral” approach to solving racial problems in America, agreeing that Obama tends to believe that racial problems can best be alleviated by economic solutions. However, Wise says, “racial disparities that are caused by racial discrimination—by race-specific injury—can’t be solved with race-neutral analysis or race-neutral policy.” Wise says that long-term studies show that the single biggest reason why support for social safety-net programs has dropped so steadily in America over the last few decades has been the perception that those programs will be abused by minorities, a perception Wise says is shaped in part by racist beliefs. Ironically, that lack of citizen support, which has translated into a lack of governmental support, means that when white Americans need those programs themselves, they do not get the services they require; in the last decade, many more whites have begun to suffer economic plights, and they now need the programs they have largely opposed. Wise says that the liberal strategy of ignoring racism from the right, pretending it does not exist, and/or trying to “rise above it,” just gives the implied racism of conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and many “tea party” activists that much more influence and power. The more the idea of racism is openly addressed, Wise says, the less effective racial overtones and implications are in politics. Historically, Wise says, white Americans strongly support federally funded social programs as long as they do not perceive minorities as being the primary beneficiaries of those programs. After 1971-72, he says, the media began portraying the recipients of welfare, Medicaid, and other safety-net programs as largely African-American. Before, he says, the media usually showed whites in Appalachia, for example, with whites standing in soup-kitchen lines and so forth. When the media began portraying safety-net recipients as mostly minorities, white support of those programs began to plummet. Flanders turns the conversation to the “tea party” movement, and, after citing Wise’s recent article, “Imagine If the Tea Party Was Black” (see April 25, 2010), she asks about the racism that infuses much of the tea party’s ideology and activism (see April 25, 2010). Obviously, Wise says, if tea partiers were black, “they wouldn’t be able to surround lawmakers and scream at them at the top of their lungs like petulant children.” Even if one does not accept the allegations of racial slurs and spitting that have been made against tea partiers (see March 20, 2010), which Wise does accept as true, “just the notion that a thousand white people can get around a bunch of lawmakers, some of whom are white and some of whom are of color, and scream and yell at them and tell them how to vote…” It is inconceivable that black protesters and activists could “get away with that,” he says, “without being seen as criminals.” And the idea of Arab-Americans or Latinos trying to do something similar, he says, is even harder to conceive, he says: Arab-Americans would be vilified as terrorists, and Latinos would be smeared as illegal aliens. The political impact of the tea partiers has been far stronger than anything black and other minority civil rights and political pressure groups have been able to bring to bear. “In every sense,” he says, “the tea party is able to get away with things—say things, do things, make the kinds of statements about public leaders and officials—that no group of color could ever possibly do.” [GRIT TV, 9/25/2010]

Clockwise from upper left: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee. [Source: Huffington Post]The online news site Politico publishes an analysis of Fox News’s choice to actively and openly promote four of its paid contributors—Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee—as viable candidates for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. “How does a news organization cover White House hopefuls when so many are on the payroll?” ask reporters Jonathan Martin and Keach Hagey. “With the exception of Mitt Romney [R-MA], Fox now has deals with every major potential Republican presidential candidate not currently in elected office,” they write, and note that Fox’s competitors are expressing increasing frustration at their inability to interview any of Fox’s contributors. Some Republican insiders, they write, are calling the four “the Fox candidates.” It is “uncertain how other news organizations can cover the early stages of the presidential race when some of the main GOP contenders are contractually forbidden to appear on any TV network besides Fox,” the reporters note. C-SPAN political editor Steve Scully recently said that his network was denied an interview with Palin because Fox refused to give permission for her to appear on a “rival” network (C-SPAN is a government-funded news outlet that is considered relentlessly non-partisan). And, the reporters write, “Producers at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC all report similar experiences.” Martin and Hagey write that the issue is one of basic “journalistic fairness and propriety,” and continue: “With Fox effectively becoming the flagship network of the right and, more specifically, the tea party movement, the four Republicans it employs enjoy an unparalleled platform from which to speak directly to primary voters who will determine the party’s next nominee. Their Fox jobs allow these politicians an opportunity to send conservative activists a mostly unfiltered message in what is almost always a friendly environment. Fox opinion hosts typically invite the Republicans simply to offer their views on issues of the day, rather than press them to defend their rhetoric or records as leaders of the party.” Fox News has said that once any of the four officially declare their candidacy for president, they will have to sever their contract with the network, but, the reporters note, Fox News is “such a lucrative and powerful pulpit that Palin, Gingrich, Santorum, and Huckabee have every reason to delay formal announcements and stay on contract for as long as they can.” Palin, for one, is already appearing in many early primary states, giving the strong impression that she is either preparing for a presidential run herself or laying the groundwork for a major role as a supporter of another candidate. However, Fox News isn’t saying one way or the other, and because of her exclusive contract with Fox, no other network reporter can ask Palin about her plans. As of late September 2010, only Gingrich has appeared on any other network, having made two appearances on ABC and three on NBC since January. He and the other “Fox candidates” have appeared dozens of times on Fox News during this time period. “The idea of the four prospects—and especially the former Alaska governor—facing media questions only on a network that both pays them and offers limited scrutiny has already become a matter of frustration in the political and journalistic community,” Martin and Hagey write. Within Fox News, there are some officials who have spoken anonymously about their unease at the idea of paying candidates they are supposed to cover. As yet, no one in senior management has instructed Fox News reporters on how to treat their colleagues and presumed presidential contenders. “The cold reality is, nobody at the reporter level has any say on this,” says a source familiar with the situation. “They’re left in the lurch.” And potential candidates who do not work at Fox are beginning to chafe at the disparate amount of coverage granted them by the network. One aide to an unnamed Republican considering a run for the presidency told a Fox employee, “I wish we could get that much airtime, but, oh yeah, we don’t get a paycheck.” Republican strategist Jim Dyke, who is not currently working for any potential 2012 GOP candidate, says that after the November midterm elections, the issue will become more visible. “As it becomes clear somebody is looking at running, Fox gets into a bit of a box because doesn’t it become an in-kind contribution if they’re being paid?” he asks. For her part, Palin seems quite comfortable staying exclusively within the friendly environs of Fox News, and has even advised other Republican candidates for office to “[s]peak through Fox News” (see September 15-16, 2010). [Politico, 9/27/2010]

Online supporters of Sarah Palin (R-PA) threaten to murder a young, mentally unstable fellow supporter after Palin and a friend file a restraining order against the man. Palin and her friend, Kristan Cole, have filed 20-day restraining orders against Shawn Christy, an 18-year-old Pennsylvania resident; in the court filing, Palin says that in telephone and written communications with her staff, Christy threatened to track her down at her book signings in the continental US, warned her “that she better watch her back,” said he was buying a one-way ticket to Alaska, and sent her a gun-purchase receipt. “Bottom line is, he is crazy and could kill me,” Palin tells the court. “He wants me dead.” The court filings state that Palin and Cole believe Christy to be “delusional.” Offers to Kill Him with 'Liberal Lead' - On September 28, the Mat-Su Frontiersman, the local newspaper for Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, publishes the story of Christy’s threats and the restraining orders. Within hours, Palin supporters repost and comment on the story. The Frontiersman is forced to delete “many comments” made on its pages “because they suggested hunting Christy and killing him.” Some Palin supporters ask the paper to post a picture of Christy so that “‘decent’ people could hunt him down and kill him.” The paper’s editorial board writes, “We were shocked at the number of people from across the US calling for his death and offering to pull the trigger on a .45 loaded with ‘liberal lead’”—apparently bullets being saved for shooting liberals—and says it would not publish such a picture to protect Christy from potential harm. Despite his obvious threats, Christy is a Palin supporter who has donated to her political action committee, and spent his savings to buy a $200 ticket to an August 27 event in Pennsylvania featuring her as a speaker. He is also known to have made multiple threats against President Obama, Obama’s 2008 Republican challenger John McCain (R-AZ), against Palin, and against numerous local officials. Investigated but Never Charged - Christy has been investigated by the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Capitol Police, and has been extensively interviewed, but has never been charged nor arrested. The Frontiersman describes him as “a young fan obsessed and then frustrated because he wanted to make contact with the Palins and be part of their phenomenon,” and notes that he has admitted being “in the wrong” for making his threats. The editors then write: “But on our Web page, readers have tried, convicted, and sentenced Christy.… There is no crime this young man could have committed, been charged with, and convicted for that would give anyone the right to hunt and kill him as so many of the commentors suggested. We wish the dozens of people who posted threats on our Web site—surely many much older than Shawn—could see that as clearly.” Christy’s father has said his son is being examined for possible psychiatric issues. Police from neighboring districts have been assigned to the Christy home to protect him from the wave of death threats he and his family are receiving. [District/Superior Court for the State of Alaska, 9/27/2010 ; Mat-Su Frontiersman, 9/30/2010; Mat-Su Frontiersman, 9/30/2010; Scranton Times-Tribune, 9/30/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/1/2010]Palin 'Commands Forces ... Truly Terrifying and Violent' - Andrew Sullivan, a conservative columnist for The Atlantic, writes that Palin’s restraining order is “completely appropriate and understandable,” and Christy is “obviously unstable.” Sullivan then goes on to note: “[T]his story does reveal some of the virulence and anger and violence that lies beneath what has become a political cult.… This woman commands forces out there that are truly terrifying and violent. If you want to know why so much about her is still unknown, you do not understand the fear her followers and acolytes command in her native Alaska. That fear is real; and it is not without reason.” [Atlantic Monthly, 10/3/2010]

In a wide-ranging interview with Rolling Stone magazine, President Obama says that he believes the loose amalgamation of groups and organizations under the “tea party” rubric is “still defining itself.” Obama says: “I think the tea party is an amalgam, a mixed bag of a lot of different strains in American politics that have been there for a long time. There are some strong and sincere libertarians who are in the tea party who generally don’t believe in government intervention in the market or socially. There are some social conservatives in the tea party who are rejecting me the same way they rejected Bill Clinton, the same way they would reject any Democratic president as being too liberal or too progressive. There are strains in the tea party that are troubled by what they saw as a series of instances in which the middle-class and working-class people have been abused or hurt by special interests and Washington, but their anger is misdirected. And then there are probably some aspects of the tea party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the president. So I think it’s hard to characterize the tea party as a whole, and I think it’s still defining itself.” Asked how the tea parties are being financed, Obama says: “There’s no doubt that the infrastructure and the financing of the tea party come from some very traditional, very powerful, special-interest lobbies. I don’t think this is a secret. Dick Armey and FreedomWorks (see May 16, 2008, April 14, 2009, and April 15, 2009), which was one of the first organizational mechanisms to bring tea party folks together, are financed by very conservative industries and forces that are opposed to enforcement of environmental laws, that are opposed to an energy policy that would be different than the fossil-fuel-based approach we’ve been taking, that don’t believe in regulations that protect workers from safety violations in the workplace, that want to make sure that we are not regulating the financial industries in ways that we have. There’s no doubt that there is genuine anger, frustration, and anxiety in the public at large about the worst financial crisis we’ve experienced since the Great Depression. Part of what we have to keep in mind here is this recession is worse than the Ronald Reagan recession of the eighties, the 1990-91 recession, and the 2001 recession combined. The depths of it have been profound. This body politic took a big hit in the gut, and that always roils up our politics, and can make people angry. But because of the ability of a lot of very well-funded groups to point that anger—I think misdirect that anger—it is translating into a relevant political force in this election.” [Rolling Stone, 9/28/2010]

Los Angeles Times columnist James Rainey discusses Fox News’s relentless promotion of its own employees for presidential office (see October 26, 2009 and September 27, 2010). Rainey notes that Fox contributors Sarah Palin (R-AK), Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Rick Santorum (R-PA), and Mike Huckabee (R-TN) are all using their appearances on Fox to groom themselves for the 2012 presidential race, with the apparent blessing and collusion of Fox News. Rainey writes, with some apparent sarcasm, “It’s easy to get news coverage, it turns out, when you work for a news company!” Other Republicans attempting to build momentum for their own 2012 bid, such as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, are being “shut out” of Fox’s promotional campaign. And other news networks—even C-SPAN—rarely get to interview Palin, Gingrich, Santorum, and Huckabee, as they are all under exclusive contract with Fox and do not appear on competing news providers. Some Republicans are discomfited by this situation, but, Rainey writes, they are “ma[king] their complaints quietly, lest they anger the powers at Fox.” Rainey goes on to note that the story is getting little attention outside political circles, “[b]ecause the information juggernaut built by Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, once a GOP attack dog and now head of Fox News, has been tilting the playing field for so long, so persistently, and denying its bias so shamelessly that it’s created an alternate reality.” Rainey notes that Fox parent News Corp’s unprecedented multi-million dollar donations to Republican causes (see June 24, 2010 and After and September 30, 2010) have drawn relatively little criticism, even as Fox’s supposedly unbiased and nonpartisan news anchors and personalities (not its prime-time opinion makers) “routinely pound away at conservative talking points.” The other news networks spend their time on regular stories, Rainey writes, but Fox News spends so much “straight news” time covering non-existent “scandals” and promoting conservative causes that, in essence, it has created a conservative-friendly “alternate reality” for itself and its ideological colleagues. “One doesn’t even blink with surprise anymore when a Fox opinion program rolls out black-and-white newsreel footage of fascists,” he writes, “and with uniformly straight faces suggest that the Obama administration has America on the brink of a similar calamity.” Rainey rebuts claims that Fox News is merely countering the “shamelessly liberal” viewpoints of CNN and MSNBC. CNN, he writes, “has hewed relentlessly to the he-said-she said reporting imperative of old. The 24-hour news pioneer puts on alternative viewpoints, and not merely as whipping objects for ideological hosts. It’s aired multiple segments dissecting President Obama, his economic policies, and his plans for Afghanistan.” As for MSNBC, while its opinion shows are hosted by liberals, and Rainey believes that in some sense MSNBC may be trying to be a liberal version of Fox, its news broadcasts are relatively non-partisan. [Los Angeles Times, 9/29/2010]

Fox News host Glenn Beck says President Obama has surrounded himself with “radical Marxists” and “militant communists.” Beck tells his viewers: “The president has aligned himself with these radical socialists. Fact. They’re radical Marxists. They’re militant communists. Fact.… [T]he fact is, you cannot be with radical socialist, communists and be also, you know, mom and Chevrolet and apple pie and baseball, you—you can’t. It’s one or the other. That’s the fact.” [Media Matters, 11/17/2010]

The press learns that News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, has donated $1 million to the US Chamber of Commerce, one of the heaviest anti-Democratic advertisers in the 2010 midterm election campaigns. News Corp. previously donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association (RGA—see June 24, 2010 and After), drawing criticism that its chairman Rupert Murdoch, and by extension Fox News and the other media outlets owned by Murdoch’s corporation (including the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal) are violating basic tenets of journalistic ethics by donating money to only one side in an election season. Fox News officials say they knew nothing of the donation until they learned of it through news reports. White House adviser David Axelrod says that while he believes Fox executives did not know of the donation, “it certainly sends a signal as to what the corporate position is.… If you’re pushing a point of view there, you wouldn’t take it as a disincentive to keep going.” The Democratic National Committee says in a statement, “What these contributions make clear is that the Republican Party is a division of News Corp., just as Fox News is a division of News Corp.” The Chamber of Commerce has promised to spend up to $75 million in anti-Democratic, pro-Republican campaign advertisements. [Politico, 9/30/2010; New York Times, 10/1/2010] Politico notes: “The parent companies of other media companies such as Disney (which owns ABC) and General Electric (which owns NBC) have also made political contributions, but typically in far smaller chunks, and split between Democrats and Republicans. In the past, News Corp. has also spread its donations between candidates of both parties.” [Politico, 9/30/2010]

The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), responding to news of a second million-dollar donation to Republican causes by the parent corporation of Fox News (see June 24, 2010 and After and September 30, 2010), says that the donations may shift the way Fox News is perceived by the rest of the mainstream media and perhaps even the public. CJR’s Zachary Roth writes, “Until now, the rest of the media has largely treated Fox News as one of its own,” with other reporters defending Fox when it has been criticized by Obama officials and others. But, Roth writes, in making the donation, Fox News’s parent corporation News Corp. “has largely dropped the pretense” of being anything except a partisan enterprise. Roth notes that Los Angeles Times columnist James Rainey has written of a “new order” in which “Fox’s supposed news personalities—not just its prime-time opinion makers—routinely pound away at conservative talking points” (see September 29, 2010). And he cites Ben Smith of Politico, an online news provider often considered to tilt conservative, as advising fellow reporters to cover Fox “as the political actors they often are,” adding that “reporters don’t have to take Fox at its word on its own ‘balance’ any more than we have to take a politician at his word.” Roth concludes: “Wringing one’s hands at the decline of ‘objective’ journalism misses the point, because Fox can and will continue to do what it wants. What’s important, if only for the sake of simple accuracy, is simply that Fox comes to be seen for what it is. And it’s at least possible that this week’s news will start to make that happen.” [Politico, 9/29/2010; Columbia Journalism Review, 10/1/2010]

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, in an examination of Fox News host Glenn Beck’s slippery grasp of history, notes that Beck routinely invokes Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and former US President Woodrow Wilson in comparisons to President Obama. Beck has accused Obama and his administration of supporting “eugenics” similar to those advocated by some Nazis (see May 13, 2009), claimed that Obama, like the Nazis, believes in enforced sterilization, claimed that Obama would create “death panels” to decide who lives and dies under his health care reform proposals (see August 10, 2009), told his viewers to “read Mein Kampf” if they want to understand Obama’s ideology, repeatedly accused the Obama administration of “fascism” (see September 29, 2009), claimed the Obama “brownshirts” were readying a strategy to arrest Beck and other Fox News personnel in an attempt to shut down the network, accused the United Nations of “Nazism” in pursuing efforts to curb global warming, said Obama wanted to create his own version of the SS and Hitler Youth in revamping and expanding AmeriCorps (see March 31, 2009), and more. Milbank notes that Beck either gives no evidence whatsoever to bolster his claims, or gives evidence that is either misrepresented or entirely false. Milbank writes: “Beck, it seems, has a Nazi fetish. In his first 18 months on Fox News, from early 2009 through the middle of this year, he and his guests invoked Hitler 147 times. Nazis, an additional 202 times. Fascism or fascists, 193 times. The Holocaust got 76 mentions, and Joseph Goebbels got 24. And these mentions are usually in reference to Obama.” As for Wilson, Beck routinely labels the former president a “racist” “horror show” who was “the spookiest president we ever had,” usually in preparation for comparing him to Obama. [Washington Post, 10/3/2010] Six weeks later, Fox News president Roger Ailes, defending Beck, will tell an interviewer that Milbank should be “beheaded” for criticizing Beck (see November 17-18, 2010).

American Third Position party members take part in a ‘tea party’ rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania. [Source: American Third Position]Members of the white supremacist American Third Position political party (A3P—see October 15, 2009 and After) participate in a “tea party” rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The A3P activists are led by Pennsylvania party chairman Steve Smith. According to the A3P Web site, the A3P members “presented the A3P perspective on the issues that concerned a crowd of Scranton Tea Party conservatives: taxation, government spending, and proper representation.… The policies and platform of the A3P were effectively delivered to the event attendees through personal conversation and the distribution of party literature.” Smith later says: “We explained that the A3P was formed to represent white Americans, who have been denied representation for decades.… The A3P will cut programs that encourage unproductiveness, and paired with our policy toward immigration, will end the benefits that encourage illegal aliens to stick around against our wishes. We will also put a cap on government spending. The A3P believes in a policy of protectionism rather than globalization and will nurture start-up businesses, foster growth in existing businesses, and protect against unfair imports.” Of the tea party movement, he says: “The Tea Parties are fertile ground for our activists. Tea Party supporters and the A3P share much common ground with regard to our political agendas. Through our face to face conversations and literature distributions, our activists brought our message to the Tea Party supporters. We provided them with a true alternative to the typical dead-end conservatism with which so many of these concerned and partially awakened Americans are involved. So many patriots find themselves supporting any group or organization which challenges the evil nature of the current corrupt establishment, even if they do not touch on the true issues.… Based on the very enthusiastic reception of the Tea Partiers to our message, the A3P provides the answers they need.” [American Third Position, 10/11/2010]

Two Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, teenagers, Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak, are convicted of violating Luis Ramirez’s civil rights when they beat and kicked him to death in what prosecutors call a racially motivated crime (see July 12, 2008 and After). The two were acquitted of all but the lightest charges in a local trial (see May 2, 2009 and After), but a subsequent investigation by the FBI led to charges against the two teenagers and three local law enforcement officers whom the FBI says covered up the specifics of the murder (see December 15, 2009). Both teenagers face life sentences. Schuykill County District Attorney James P. Goodman took the case away from Shenandoah police officers and had his own detectives bring it to court; observers credit Goodman’s detectives with making a far stronger case against Piekarsky and Donchak than the Shenandoah police officers presented in the first trial. [Hazleton Standard Speaker, 1/28/2011] After the first trial, Goodman said he thought the Shenandoah police officers had “compromised” the case from the outset. He told a CNN reporter: “They didn’t interview the perpetrators, the boys. In fact, not only did they not interview them, they picked them up, gave them rides, helped them concoct stories, brought them back, and told the boys what to say.… It’s clear they were trying to help these boys out, for whatever reason—they were football players, these police officers were trying to help these boys out and limit their involvement in the death of Luis Ramirez.” [CNN, 12/17/2009] Investigators have indicated that Donchak identifies with white supremacist ideology, wearing “Border Patrol” T-shirts and listening to overtly racist music. During the trial, prosecutors played one song from Donchak’s collection, titled “The White Man Marches On,” whose lyrics glorify violence against minorities. Prosecution witness Colin Walsh told the jury: “He’d sing along with it. He really didn’t like Hispanics.” Walsh testified that he saw Piekarsky deliver the kick that resulted in Ramirez’s death. Walsh said that after the beating, Piekarsky boasted to him that “he kicked the guy so hard his shoes flew off.” Eyewitness Victor Garcia testified that instead of going after Piekarsky, Donchak, and the other teenagers, who fled the scene after beating and kicking Ramirez, the police harassed him and other Hispanic witnesses. The mother of another teenager who attacked Ramirez, Brian Scully (see May 18, 2009), testified that Moyer called her in the days after the beating and told her if her son had gray-blue sneakers, to “get rid of them.” Testimony also showed that Moyer worked with Piekarsky, Walsh, and others involved in the beating to revamp the story of the beating to eliminate all references to racist comments, and to paint Ramirez as the instigator of the fight. [Scranton Times Tribune, 10/9/2009]

Martha Dean. [Source: Connecticut Political Reporter]Connecticut attorney general candidate Martha Dean, a Republican lawyer, says state governments should be able to ignore federal laws if their lawmakers so choose, even if the US Supreme Court rules the laws constitutional. In some instances, “the Supreme Court is just wrong, so what option does the state have?” Dean says. “They have the option of nullification.” “Nullification” is the idea that the Tenth Amendment gives the states the power to “nullify,” or override, federal law. [The Day, 10/14/2010] The concept gained national notoriety in 1830, when Vice President John C. Calhoun set off the so-called “Nullification Crisis” that almost led to an armed conflict between South Carolina and the rest of the nation, and helped set the stage for the Civil War 30 years later. It came to the fore again in 1956, when segregationists attempted to use the concept to persuade state leaders to ignore the Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, that mandated the desegregation of public schools (see March 12, 1956 and After); Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus attempted to invoke “nullification” when he resisted orders to integrate Little Rock public schools, an effort that was shut down by unanimous rulings of the Court. Article 6 of the Constitution states that acts of Congress “shall be the supreme law of the land… anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” Founding father James Madison argued that nullification would “speedily put an end to the Union itself” by allowing federal laws to be freely ignored by states. [Constitution (.org), 8/28/1830; Think Progress, 9/27/2010; The Day, 10/14/2010] Dean says the doctrine of “nullification” is valid and viable, saying: “This is a tool that has existed. It is a tool that isn’t often used. It isn’t often needed.” She says that when state officials such as herself, or elected governors or lawmakers, feel the federal government’s laws surpass Tenth Amendment limitations, then Connecticut and other states should nullify those laws. Dean says her position is controversial only to “the left.” However, the idea has been used for centuries by anti-government activists, most memorably during the run-up to the Civil War and the battle over civil rights for African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. Law professor Richard Kay says the idea is entirely invalid. “This was a very plausible argument up until 1865,” Kay says. “But after the Civil War, what was a genuine argument about the nature of the American constitutional system was pretty decisively decided. Since 1865 it’s pretty much a settled matter, with some rare fringe arguments to the contrary. The question of who has the ultimate authority to interpret the Constitution was settled” in favor of the US Supreme Court. The idea that the Constitution is not an ultimately binding authoritative document, but merely an agreement between autonomous states—the core of “nullification”—has always been “very controversial,” Kay notes, and has been rejected by the Supreme Court since 1819. Dean states that the Court’s decisions have been twisted by “liberal law professors,” and rejects the idea that the US Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of constitutionality. Her opponent, Democrat George Jepsen, says her idea would lead to chaos. If states can simply refuse to abide by the rulings of the Supreme Court, federal statutes themselves would become unenforceable, he says, and there would be nothing to stop states from seceding altogether. “The point is that we have one Constitution and there needs to be one place that defines what that Constitution means,” Jepsen says. “Under nullification, any state legislature, any state governor could declare that a law is unconstitutional. That would send us onto a course where there would be 50 different unique interpretations of a federal statute. We would cease to be a united nation.” Jepsen calls Dean’s views “extreme.” Dean contends that the idea would not necessarily threaten the Union, and says, “It’s been worked out in the past.” She goes on to say that “I don’t think desegregation was really controversial aside from a few states in the South.” Kay says Dean’s views were quite mainstream in 1842, but not since then. [The Day, 10/14/2010] After being challenged by a constitutional scholar, Dean cites the work of a neo-Confederate segregationist as further support of her position (see October 14, 2010). Jepsen will defeat Dean in the general election, beating back an election-eve attempt by her to challenge his credentials to serve as attorney general. [Hartford Courant, 11/3/2010]

Brooke Obie of the Constitutional Accountability Center attacks a recent statement of position by Connecticut attorney general candidate Martha Dean, who advocates the concept of “nullification”—the idea that states can ignore or override federal laws if they so choose (see October 14, 2010). Obie says Dean’s position is a “dangerous” claim that ignores the fundamental precepts of the US Constitution and every relevant court decision since before the Civil War. Articles III and VI of the Constitution explicitly place federal law over states’ laws, and place the Supreme Court firmly in the position of being the final arbiter of whether a federal law is unconstitutional. “It is disturbing that Dean, seeking office as a state’s chief lawyer, said in the interview that she does not ‘accept’ that the Supreme Court has this authority,” Obie writes, and refers Dean to the first Chief Justice, John Marshall, who wrote that “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Nullification is “completely unconstitutional,” Obie writes, and has been used to bring about “some of the most divisive moments in our history: from the attempted destruction of our great nation by secessionists in the 19th century, to the dividing of people by segregationists in the 1950s and 1960s. Encouraging such backsliding of America into its darkest days is an extremely dangerous position for anyone to take, let alone someone seeking to become a state attorney general.” [Constitutional Accountability Center, 10/14/2010] In the comments section of Obie’s article, Dean reprints a post from Thomas Woods that Woods posted on his blog in response to Obie. Woods is a pro-Confederate segregationist. Woods calls Obie’s work a “fifth-grade research paper masquerading as a critique of Martha Dean,” and goes on to say that “[a]lmost every single sentence in this post is wrong. Your view of the Supremacy Clause is wrong, your view of Article III is grotesquely wrong, your summary of the history of nullification is absurd, and your comment about secessionists makes no sense. South Carolina was complaining that the NORTH was nullifying too much. Talk about getting the history exactly backwards!” He compares Obie’s views to “progressives,” neoconservatives, and Adolf Hitler. Think Progress’s legal expert Ian Millhiser later notes that Woods is a co-founder of the neo-Confederate League of the South, and has called the Civil War a battle between “atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins on the one side and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other,” contending that the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865 was “[t]he real watershed from which we can trace many of the destructive trends that continue to ravage our civilization today.” Dean has cited Woods before, in one debate reading aloud from his book in support of nullification. Woods is a prolific contributor to the far-right Tenth Amendment Center, a pro-nullification group which pushes political candidates to sign a pledge promising to nullify federal laws such as Social Security and Medicare which do not comply with their “tenther” view of the Constitution. [Constitutional Accountability Center, 10/14/2010; Think Progress, 10/19/2010]

East German guards carry the body of a slain child back over the border, in this undated photo. [Source: Ben and Bawb's Blog (.com)]Alaska candidate for US Senate Joe Miller (R-AK) tells a crowd at a town hall meeting in an Anchorage middle school that the US should emulate the effectiveness of the former East German border control system to keep illegal immigrants out. A Miller supporter asks Miller how he thinks the US should stop illegal immigrants. Miller responds that the way to stop illegal immigration is to build a fence at the border (he does not say the northern or southern border), and cites the effectiveness of the East Germans in controlling their borders. East Germany, under Soviet control, built the infamous Berlin Wall, and hundreds of people were killed by East German border patrol officials trying to sneak out of East Germany into West Germany. Miller says he got a first-hand look at the barbed wire and concrete divide as a West Point cadet when he was sent to the Fulda Gap near Frankfurt, “when the wall was still up between East and West Germany.” Miller says, “East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow.” Perhaps referring to the machine gun nests on and around the wall, and the border guards with standing orders to shoot to kill, Miller adds: “Obviously there were other things that were involved, but we have the capacity as a great nation to obviously secure our border. If East Germany could do it, we could do it.” [Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010] After the town hall event, a group of Miller’s private security guards forcibly detain and handcuff a reporter who attempts to question Miller (see October 17, 2010).

Several of Joe Miller’s private security guards stand over a handcuffed Tony Hopfinger, whom they detained during a political event. [Source: Anchorage Daily News]Tony Hopfinger, an editor of the Alaska Dispatch, is “arrested,” detained, and handcuffed by private security guards employed by US Senate candidate Joe Miller (R-AK) after he attempts to interview Miller. Miller appeared at a public event at Anchorage, Alaska’s Central Middle School, sponsored by his campaign. The guards handcuff Hopfinger, place him in a chair in a hallway, and stand over him, presumably to prevent his “escape” from custody. They release him when Anchorage police arrive on the scene and order him arrested. The security guards come from a private security firm known as The Drop Zone; owner William Fulton, one of the guards who detains Hopfinger, accuses Hopfinger of trespassing at the public event, and says he assaulted someone by shoving him. Anchorage police say they have not yet filed charges against anyone. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/17/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010; Salon, 10/18/2010] Miller, Fulton, and The Drop Zone are later shown to have ties to Alaska’s far-right paramilitary and militia groups, to employ active-duty soldiers, and to lack a business license to legally operate (see October 18, 2010). Small Gathering Marked by Candidate Dodging Tough Questions - The 3 p.m. event is billed by the Miller campaign as a chance for voters to “hear Joe Miller speak for himself,” and is clearly a public event: in a Facebook campaign entry, the campaign urges supporters to bring their “friends, colleagues, family, acquaintances, neighbors.” The entry also tells voters, “Don’t let the media skew your views.” Miller spends some 45 minutes addressing the crowd of several hundred voters and, according to the Anchorage Daily News, “answering—or deflecting—questions.” While there are many Miller supporters in the crowd, some hostile questioners also make themselves heard. One questioner, referring to Miller’s admitted reliance on medical care subsidies and other federal benefits in contradiction to his campaign theme of such benefits being unconstitutional, calls Miller a “welfare queen—you had a lot of children that you couldn’t afford, and we had to pay for it.” Miller responds that he is not necessarily opposed to such benefits, only that they should come from the states and not the federal government. Another criticizes Miller’s announcement last week that he would no longer answer questions about his character or his personal history. The questioner says that while his opponents have previous records in elective office, he does not: “In this instance, you have no record, so it’s meaningful and it’s reasonable that we would want to examine your professional background and your military…” Miller cuts her off and calls her a known supporter of his opponent, write-in candidate Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who lost a narrow primary vote to him. Miller says he has a public record as a state and federal judge, but adds that he wants to discuss his position on federal spending and not federal subsidies he may have received. During the questioning period, he says he will stay to talk to individuals, but when the period concludes, he quickly leaves the room. [Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010] Miller does speak to a few participants in the school hallway after leaving the room. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/18/2010]Detained after Asking Questions - Hopfinger, carrying a small video camera, approaches Miller after the event, and asks questions of the candidate concerning disciplinary actions taken against him while he was a lawyer for the Fairbanks North Star Borough. The topic is one Miller has cited as driving his refusal to answer further questions about his character and personal history; he was disciplined for using government computers for partisan political activity during his time as a part-time borough attorney. Three press outlets, including the Alaska Dispatch and the Anchorage Daily News, are suing the borough to get Miller’s personnel file. Miller walks away from Hopfinger without answering. Some of the people in the vicinity tell Hopfinger to “quit pestering” Miller. As they walk down the hallway, Miller suddenly changes direction, leaving Hopfinger quickly surrounded and pressed in by Miller supporters and a large contingent of private security guards, all of them wearing radio earphones. (Miller later claims that Hopfinger is actively blocking his exit from the hallway, a claim not backed up by evidence, and tells a Fox News reporter that Hopfinger “was hounding me… blocking the way.”) Hopfinger later says he feels threatened and pressured, so he shoves one of the guards aside. “These guys were bumping into me,” Hopfinger later says, “bumping me into Miller’s supporters.” He later identifies Fulton as the individual making most of the physical contact with him. The man Hopfinger shoves is not hurt, Fulton later says, though Hopfinger later says Fulton is the man he pushed away. No one else comes forward to say they were the person “assaulted,” Hopfinger later says. At this point, Miller’s private security guards seize Hopfinger, push him against a wall, cuff his hands behind his back with steel handcuffs, sit him in a chair in a hallway, and “confiscate” his video camera. Hopfinger later says he chooses not to resist, saying “these guys would have had me on the ground; it ramped up that fast.” He later says that when the guards tell him he is trespassing, he is given no time to leave, and is immediately seized and handcuffed. Everything happens in seconds, he will say. Hopfinger later says that when he receives his video camera back, the segment of video showing his questions to Miller, and the ensuing scuffle, have been deleted. Hopfinger refuses an offer from police to have the video camera taken into custody and analyzed by the crime lab. The guard who takes the camera later denies erasing anything, and says Hopfinger dropped it during the altercation. [Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010; Salon, 10/18/2010; Fox News, 10/18/2010; Alaska Dispatch, 10/19/2010] A Miller supporter who witnesses the incident later says Miller knocks her aside and “bowl[s] over” her eight-year-old son in his attempt to get away from Hopfinger (see October 17-18, 2010). Other Reporters Threatened - Hopfinger later says Fulton then says he is calling the police, and Hopfinger responds that calling the police is a good idea. Hopfinger is then handcuffed. Fulton later says he does not know how long Hopfinger was detained for; Hopfinger later says it seemed like a long time to him. While Hopfinger is in handcuffs and surrounded by Miller’s guards, the guards attempt to prevent other reporters from talking to him, and threaten the reporters with similar “arrests” and handcuffing for trespassing. An Anchorage Daily News reporter succeeds in speaking with Hopfinger, and is not detained. Several small altercations between the guards and reporters ensue, consisting of chest bumps and shoving matches as the guards attempt to prevent reporters from filming the scene. Video footage shot by Anchorage Daily News reporter Rich Mauer shows three guards blocking Mauer and Dispatch reporter Jill Burke from approaching Hopfinger, and shows Burke repeatedly asking a guard to take his hands off her. When police officers arrive, they order Fulton to release Hopfinger from the handcuffs. According to Hopfinger, during the entire time he is detained, he is in the “custody” of people who identified themselves only as “Miller volunteers,” though most of them are wearing the radio earphones. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/17/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010; Alaska Dispatch, 10/18/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010] An Anchorage police officer removes the cuffs and refuses to accept Fulton’s “private person’s arrest” (Alaska’s equivalent of a “citizen’s arrest”) after interviewing people at the scene. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/18/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010]Miller Campaign Accuses Hopfinger of Assault, 'Irrational' Behavior - After the incident, the Miller campaign quickly releases a statement accusing Hopfinger of assault and attempting to “create a publicity stunt” (see October 17-18, 2010). [Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010] Hopfinger later says he would have preferred a less confrontational method of questioning Miller. “I was not assaulting or touching Joe, I was asking him questions,” Hopfinger will say. “I would certainly prefer to sit down with Mr. Miller and ask him the questions, but he drew a line in the sand a week ago and said he wasn’t going to do that. That doesn’t mean we don’t go to functions or public appearances and try to ask our questions.” [Alaska Dispatch, 10/19/2010]Further Investigation - The school’s security camera may have captured footage of the incident, police say. Hopfinger is considering whether to file assault charges against Fulton, “The Drop Zone,” and/or the Miller campaign. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/17/2010] However, Heidi Embley, a spokeswoman for the Anchorage School District, later says security cameras were partially installed at the school but were not equipped with recording devices, so no video of the scene is available from that source. She later says that Miller’s group paid $400 to use the school for three hours, a standard fee for any non-school group. She also says that any such gatherings are technically private events because the group is renting the facility for its meeting. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/18/2010] The campaign rented the cafeteria, stage, and parking lot, the school district later notes, and the hallway outside the event venue was not covered in the rental agreement. [Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010] Sergeant Mark Rein of the Anchorage Police Department says Hopfinger is not in custody or under arrest. [Crooks and Liars, 10/18/2010] Al Patterson, chief Anchorage municipal prosecutor, later decides to file no charges against anyone involved. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/19/2010]False Claim of Security Requirement - Miller later tells national news reporters that he had been told by the school district to hire private security guards as part of his agreement to use the facility. He later tells a Fox News reporter, “I might also note that the middle school itself required us by a contract for a campaign, required us to have a security team.” And he tells a CNN reporter: “There was a—a private security team that was required. We had to hire them because the school required that as a term in their lease.” Embley will state that Miller’s claims are false, and there is no such requirement for private security guards in the rental agreement. The agreement does require some sort of security plan, Embley will say, no matter what the function. She will give the agreement to reporters, who learn that the plan basically involves monitors to watch over parking and ensure participants do not bring food or drink into the facility. Miller’s campaign will later claim, again falsely, that the security plan called for Miller’s “security team” to enforce a “no disruptive behavior” clause, and in its assessment, Hopfinger was being disruptive. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/18/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010]

The campaign of Joe Miller (R-AK), a candidate for US Senate in Alaska, releases a pair of statements following Miller’s security guards detaining and handcuffing a reporter for attempting to ask Miller questions after a public event in Anchorage (see October 17, 2010). The first statement is a single paragraph from William Fulton, the owner of “The Drop Zone,” a private security firm whose guards, employed by Miller’s campaign, handcuffed and restrained Alaska Dispatch reporter Tony Hopfinger. Fulton himself was one of the guards who handcuffed Hopfinger. In his statement, Fulton accuses Hopfinger of “assaulting” one of his guards, and claims that because the school district rented the space to the campaign, his guards had the right to declare anyone in trespass. He says Hopfinger was “stalking” Miller and posed a security threat. The statement from the Miller campaign, entitled “Liberal Blogger ‘Loses It’ at Town Hall Meeting,” accuses Hopfinger, the editor of the Alaska Dispatch newspaper, of being “an irrational blogger” attempting to “create a publicity stunt” by assaulting someone during the event. The statement says Miller’s guards were forced to take action to restrain the “irrational” Hopfinger. “It is also important to note that the security personnel did not know that the individual they detained was a blogger who reporting on the campaign [sic],” the statement continues. Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto refuses to comment or make Miller, himself a witness, available for news interviews. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/17/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010]Miller's Statement - The statement reads in full: “The Miller campaign was required by the facility to provide security at the event. Even though Joe had spent nearly an hour freely answering questions from those in attendance, the blogger chased Miller to the exit after the event concluded in an attempt to create and then record a ‘confrontation’ with the candidate. While Miller attempted to calmly exit the facility, the blogger physically assaulted another individual and made threatening gestures and movements towards the candidate. At that point the security personnel had to take action and intervened and detained the irrational blogger, whose anger overcame him. It is also important to note that the security personnel did not know that the individual they detained was a blogger who reporting on the campaign. To them, the blogger appeared irrational, angry, and potentially violent.” [Joe Miller, 10/17/2010; Crooks and Liars, 10/18/2010]Security Guard Insists He Had Legal Authority to Handcuff Reporter - Interviewed by a reporter from the Alaska Dispatch, Fulton says he and his guards pushed Hopfinger into a wall and handcuffed him because he refused to leave a private event and was trespassing. The event, which was clearly public, was indeed private, Fulton says, and Hopfinger should have been aware of that because of the “Joe Miller for Senate” signs outside the venue, an Anchorage middle school. “They leased it for a private event,” Fulton says. “It wasn’t a public place.” That, he says, gave him the legal authority to tell Hopfinger to leave, then grab him and handcuff him when he didn’t do as told. Hopfinger says he was given no warning and no opportunity to leave. He says he had no idea who Fulton was. The security guard was in a black suit, not a uniform, Hopfinger says, and refused to identify himself. “He throws me up against the wall,” Hopfinger states. “He handcuffs me,” and even then, Hopfinger says, Fulton refused to identify himself. Hopfinger says he was attempting to get Miller to answer questions about disciplinary hearings he faced while a lawyer with the Fairbanks North Star Borough, questions Miller has repeatedly refused to address. Fulton states that he and his fellow guards restrained Hopfinger because the reporter was “getting really pushy with Joe. Joe was trying to get away from him.” Fulton goes on to state that he was suspicious of Hopfinger because the reporter “had something in his hand,” but admits he knew Hopfinger was not carrying a weapon. “It could have been a camera,” he says. “It could have been a recording device. It could have been an iPhone.” Hopfinger was carrying, and using, a video camera. According to Fulton, when his guards surrounded Hopfinger, the reporter “shoulder checked a guy into a locker.” Fulton says whomever Hopfinger pushed aside “wasn’t one of our guys. It could have been anyone. [But] I saw that shoulder check as being violent.” Hopfinger says he was trying to get some room from the crowd of guards and Miller supporters pressing in on him, and only remembers touching Fulton. He says he did not “shoulder check” anyone, and says he put his hand on Fulton’s chest to try to push him away. “I was being pushed into a lot of people,” Hopfinger says. “I used my hand. It all happened in seconds. He said it was a private event. He grabbed me and said, ‘You’re under arrest.’” Fulton says as a private security guard he has the authority to police “private events,” but refuses to answer questions about how this particular event, billed as a public gathering at a public school, could be private. The Alaska Dispatch writes: “The meeting was open to the public. There were no names taken at the door. Reporters were not asked to apply for credentials.” Fulton insists, “This is a simple trespassing issue,” but no one else “trespassing” in the hallway with Hopfinger was detained. Fulton admits that others in the hallway may have been reporters, and says: “I think we told them [all] to leave. It’s not a public [place] if it’s leased. It was a private event… because it’s a private event, and we’ve taken over the school.” [Alaska Dispatch, 10/17/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010]Witness: Guards Overreacted, Miller Shoved Her, Knocked Over Young Boy - A witness to the incident says while Hopfinger was rude, he did not threaten Miller and the guards overreacted. Lolly Symbol, a Miller supporter from Big Lake, drove to the rally with her two young sons to ask Miller about his stance on gun control. She says she received the opportunity just after the town hall event, when Miller spoke with a few people outside the main room. She says she was standing next to Miller when Hopfinger began questioning him. According to Symbol, Miller was already angry with another questioner, an elderly woman who asked him about his military background. “He ended up getting really huffy with her,” Symbol says. She began asking him her question, she recalls, when Hopfinger interrupted her with a camera and a question about the incident with Fairbanks North Star Borough. “I would say Tony was aggressive, and I would say he was rude because he interrupted me, but he didn’t do anything wrong and he wasn’t posing a threat to Miller,” Symbol says. Miller shoved her aside, Symbol says, and “bowled over” her eight-year-old son Vincent Mahoney in his attempt to get away from Hopfinger. “I don’t know if [Miller] didn’t see him or didn’t care, but he didn’t say ‘excuse me’ or ‘I’m sorry.’ He didn’t even turn his head,” Symbol recalls. “He simply did not care at all.” Hopfinger continued to try to question Miller, but the security guards blocked his access. “They kept pushing him back,” she recalls. “He kept saying, ‘I have a right to be here, I have a right to be asking these questions.’ Tony would try to walk forward and they would push him back.” Symbol says she did not see Hopfinger push anyone, though the reporter has said he did push someone he thought was a security guard who had bumped him to keep him back. Heidi Embley, a spokeswoman for the Anchorage School District, says security cameras were partially installed at the school but were not equipped with recording devices, so no video of the scene is available. Symbol says she attempted to give her statement to police, but no one would take her information. Of Hopfinger, she says: “I do not believe that he did anything wrong. He was rude and he was aggressive but that’s just what the press does. Legally he did not do anything wrong that deserved to be put in cuffs.” Of Miller and the incident, she says: “The whole thing just made me sick. I was a big supporter of Joe Miller, I really was. But not anymore.” [Alaska Dispatch, 10/18/2010]

The poster featured in the front window of the Drop Zone. The caption reads: “Fascism. Socialism. New World Order. InfoWars.com.” [Source: Life in Spenard (.com)]Investigative reporters and bloggers learn that the private security firm hired by Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller (R-AK) is also active in right-wing militia and paramilitary activities. They also learn that some of the guards employed by the firm, the Drop Zone (DZ), are active-duty military soldiers, and that the firm is unlicensed and therefore operating outside the law. [Huffington Post, 10/18/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010; Salon, 10/19/2010]Senate Candidate Has History of Armed Intimidation, Association with Militias - Miller himself has a history of armed intimidation: according to blogger and reporter Shannyn Moore, in 2008 he attempted to stage a “coup d’etat” of the leadership of the Alaska Republican Party, appearing during a meeting with a group of armed security guards. (The attempt, as such, was unsuccessful, and Miller currently enjoys the support of the Alaska Republican Party.) During the 2010 Senate campaign, Miller’s supporters drew media attention by brandishing assault rifles during campaign rallies (see July 19, 2010). [Huffington Post, 10/18/2010]Security Guards on Active Duty with Army - On September 17, Miller’s security guards forcibly detained and handcuffed reporter Tony Hopfinger for attempting to question Miller about disciplinary measures taken against him while he was a lawyer for the Fairbanks North Star Borough (see October 17, 2010). The security guards work with DZ, and two of the guards who roughed up Hopfinger are on active duty with the US Army. The two guards, Specialist Tyler Ellingboe and Sergeant Alexander Valdez, are members of the 3rd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Fort Richardson. Army public affairs officer Major Bill Coppernoll says neither soldier has permission from their commanding officers to work for DZ, and the Army is still looking into whether previous company or brigade commanders authorized their employment. “They’ve got to be up front with the chain of command,” Coppernoll says. “The chain of command needs to agree they can do that without affecting the readiness and the whole slew of things that are part of being a soldier that they need to do first.” DZ owner William Fulton, who was one of the guards who restrained and handcuffed Hopfinger, says it is not his job to ensure that the soldiers complied with Army regulations. “They’re adults—they are responsible for themselves,” Fulton says. [Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010; Salon, 10/19/2010] Hopfinger identifies Ellingboe and Valdez as two of the guards who stood over him during the time he was handcuffed. Hopfinger says Ellingboe and Valdez refused to give him their names and would not identify their company or who they were working for. At one point they told him they were volunteers, he says. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/19/2010] A Defense Department directive from 2008, entitled “Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces on Active Duty,” states in part, “A member of the armed forces on active duty shall not:… [p]erform clerical or other duties for a partisan political committee or candidate during a campaign.” [Department of Defense, 2/19/2008 ]Security Firm: Ties to Militias, Blackwater - Fulton is an active member of the Alaska Citizens Militia, where he is titled a “supply sergeant.” The organization is led by former Michigan Militia leader Norm Olson (see April 1994, March 25 - April 1, 1996, and Summer 1996 - June 1997), who recently attempted to run for lieutenant governor of Alaska under the auspices of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party (AIP—see September 6-7, 2008). [Yahoo! News, 10/20/2010; PalinGates, 10/20/2010] Many DZ employees have bragged about their connections to far-right elements in Alaska’s political and paramilitary scenes, and have said that the firm employs a number of former Blackwater security personnel. The firm displays a large poster of President Obama as “The Joker” in its front window and a link to InfoWars.com, a right-wing conspiracy Web site hosted by Alex Jones. The owner of the Drop Zone, William Fulton, has boasted to patrons about his partners’ participation in renditions and “black ops” overseas, and likes to show his .50-caliber sniper rifle to prospective customers. Fulton has frequently told patrons about his fondness for Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck, saying to one, “Glenn talks to the crazies,” who are his best customers. Fulton also has suspected ties to the Alaskan Independence Party, which once claimed Todd Palin, former Governor Sarah Palin’s husband, as a member. [Huffington Post, 10/18/2010; Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010; Life in Spenard, 10/18/2010; Salon, 10/19/2010]Miller's Ties to Militias - Alaska Citizens Militia leader Ray Southwell, a longtime crony of Olson’s and a fellow leader of the Alaska Citizens Militia, recently wrote of meeting Miller at a militia leader’s home in Soldotna, Alaska. Southwell wrote in a militia forum that he recently encouraged Miller to run for state office: “We need leaders here to stand against the feds.” In that same forum, Olson posted his endorsement of Miller’s candidacy. [PalinGates, 10/20/2010]Expired License - Investigating bloggers also find that the Drop Zone’s license to do business as a security firm (under the name “Dropzone Security Services”) expired in December 2009. The firm updated its license on September 18, 2010, the day after its guards detained and handcuffed Hopfinger, but only renewed its license to trade, not its license to provide security. [The Immoral Minority, 10/19/2010; Yahoo! News, 10/20/2010; PalinGates, 10/20/2010] Fulton tells a reporter that he is not a security guard and that DZ is not a security guard agency, therefore he needs no license to operate as a security firm. Instead, he says, DZ is a “contract agency” and that he and his people are considered “security agents,” not guards. “We don’t do anything covered under the security [statutes],” he says. “We don’t do anything that the state has any authority to tell us what to do.” He denies having any employees, and says he hires specific people on a contract basis. DZ is primarily a military supply store, Fulton says, and only does security contracts “three or four times a month.” He admits to doing business with Miller in the past, but refuses to go into detail. He goes on to say that his guards at the Miller event were unarmed, and his “contractors” only carry weapons when they undertake “fugitive recovery” jobs: “All the guys we use are professionals, and they act professionally and dress professionally.” Hopfinger disagrees with Fulton’s contention that he is a security “agent” as opposed to a “guard,” saying: “He certainly acted like an aggressive security guard and he may have broken the law. It was an illegal detention and an illegal arrest.” Of Miller, Hopfinger says the candidate is exhibiting “poor judgment… to have Fulton and active-duty soldiers be his bodyguards.” No other Alaska political candidate he has interviewed, including Miller’s Republican opponent Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), has security guards with them, he says. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/19/2010]Investigation - The firm is being investigated by the Alaska Department of Public Safety, both for its handling of the Hopfinger incident and for its unlicensed status. [Alaska Dispatch, 10/19/2010]

Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind, writing for their organization Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR), examine the role of “nativism” in the ideology of “tea party” members in a multi-part IREHR report (see August 24, 2010). (The Free Dictionary defines “nativists” as having “a sociopolitical policy… favoring the interests of established inhabitants over those of immigrants,” and favoring “[t]he reestablishment or perpetuation of native cultural traits, especially in opposition to acculturation.”) According to Burghart and Zeskind, many members and leaders of various “tea party” organizations are convinced that President Obama is not a “native-born” American, has never produced a valid birth certificate (see June 13, 2008), and is not a valid American citizen. They write that the idea “that Barack Obama is not a real American, but a ‘lying African,’ is… found across the entirety of the tea party movement. Hundreds of posts echoing these sentiments are on the Tea Party Nation Web site.” Since the first tea party protests in April 2009, they write: “those who do not believe that President Obama is a native born American have been widely visible. They have claimed he was a Muslim instead of a Christian, that he was born in Kenya or Indonesia, rather than in Hawaii. And that Barack Obama was a non-American socialist who conspiratorially slipped into the White House.” Characterizations that the tea party movement is based almost solely on economic concerns are belied by the strong threads of social conservatism, including “nativism,” evident in tea party ideology (see August 16, 2011). Conservative activists such as Pamela Geller, the authors note, have fueled tea party nativism and anti-Muslim/anti-immigrant stances. Geller is, the authors claim, a classic “Islamophobe,” expressing what a 1997 study by the Runnymede Trust termed an “unfounded hostility towards Muslims, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims.” Geller has frequently spoken at tea party events, often declaiming about the “threat” Muslims pose to America. Geller’s three “organizational fronts,” as Burghart and Zeskind call them, are her blog, “Atlas Shrugs,” and her two groups, SIOA (Stop Islamization of America) and the Freedom Defense Initiative. All are listed as official “partner” organizations of the ResistNet Tea Party faction. Geller is also a “birther” (see October 24, 2008, August 4, 2009, April 27, 2011, and April 29, 2011) who believes Obama is a “third worlder and a coward” who is “appeas[ing] his Islamic overlords.” Many tea party organizations also support anti-immigration legislation; Burghart and Zeskind cite a July 29 decision by the National Leadership Council of Tea Party Patriots to support Arizona’s controversial anti-immigration bill, SB1070. The largest umbrella tea party organization, the 1776 Tea Parties, holds as two of its “non-negotiable beliefs” that “illegal aliens are illegal” and “English only is required.” The 1776 Tea Parties also support Arizona’s SB1070, and has as members of its board two members of the violently anti-immigrant Minuteman Project. The tea party groups’ support for “birtherism” and nativist ideology has caused “something of a rift” between the groups and FreedomWorks, the lobbying organization that has funded the groups since their inception (see April 8, 2009 and April 14, 2009). Tea party members have targeted FreedomWorks founder Dick Armey over his limited support for pro-immigrant reform; one Tenneessee tea party organizer recently wrote, “I think we should tar-and-feather Dick Armey.” Conservative blogger and activist Michelle Malkin, a vocal supporter of the tea party groups, has called Armey an “amnesty stooge.” Tea party organizer Roy Beck of anti-immigration organization NumbersUSA recently wrote that Armey “wants immigration to be treated as a social issue with no place in the tea parties,” and suggested FreedomWorks may be trying “to intimidate local tea parties” to stay away from the issue at the behest of “corporate benefactors [who] want the foreign labor to keep pouring in.” Congress members such as Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and others in Bachmann’s House Tea Party Caucus are strongly anti-immigrant. And 42 of the 51 Tea Party Caucus members also belong to the House Immigration Reform Caucus, which supports blocking any immigration reform that would give illegal residents a pathway to citizenship. Burghart and Zeskind write, “Opposition to ‘birthright citizenship’ extends throughout the tea party movement, and is often linked to an explicit fear of the demographic transformation underway in the United States, in which white people are projected to become one minority in a country of minorities during the next several decades.” ResistNet’s state director in Alabama, Jason Leverette, recently wrote of his fear that whites (“real Americans”) were being “out-bred” by “Mexicans” who want to take over the nation and “rule America! If this trend continues… by 2050 the United States will be ruled by Hosea Jesus Delgado Gonzalez Calderon, Esq. WTF!” Burghart and Zeskind conclude, “It is here, at the conjunction of nativism, opposition to birthright citizenship, the denigration of President Obama, and the fear of the new majority in American life, that the unstated racism embedded within the tea parties becomes vocal and unmistakable.” [The Free Dictionary, 2009; Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 10/19/2010]

Larry Klayman, a former Justice Department official who founded the conservative watchdog organization Judicial Watch, pens an editorial for the online news site WorldNetDaily (WND). Klayman makes the arguably racist assertion that President Obama leads only “his people” and not “white people.” Writing that “President Obama is not a ruler for all of the people, but rather ‘his people,’” Klayman begins by claiming that he was “proud that America could elect a black president and overcome centuries of racial prejudice,” even though Obama is, in his estimation, “a politician far to the left of mainstream America.” But, two years into the Obama administration, Klayman says the American citizenry has been repelled by watching Obama “seemingly favoring his own race and true religious allegiance over whites, Christians, and Jews.” Klayman asserts, without citing evidence, that “the trillion-dollar bailouts… were earmarked for black minority contractors. These bailouts were not only economically stupid, but the money was dolled [sic] out in a discriminatory way.” The Democrats’ health care reform initiative is, Klayman writes, “designed to provide health insurance mostly for the president’s black constituency.” He goes on to cite Obama’s defense of Harvard professor Henry Gates after Gates became involved in an altercation with a Boston police officer; Attorney General Eric Holder’s refusal to prosecute members of the New Black Panther movement who, Klayman claims, “illegally disrupted an election polling place in Philadelphia”; Obama’s supposed association with “black Muslim leaders” such as Louis Farrakhan; his relationship with his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright; and his cancellation of the White House’s commemoration of the National Day of Prayer in favor of, Klayman claims, a White House feast for the Muslim Holy Day of Ramadan, which Klayman says “proves” Obama’s status as a closet Muslim. Klayman then accuses Obama of being anti-Semitic because of his supposed failure to support Israel. Hence, Klayman writes, “the majority of white Christians and Jews no longer see Obama as the president of ‘We the People’ but instead ‘his’ people.… President Obama has not united the races and religions, but instead divided and pitted them against each other. The level of hostility one sees ‘in the streets,’ with a reverse backlash against blacks and Muslims, is frightening and potentially explosive.” Because of these characteristics, Klayman writes, “the nation stands even more—particularly during a severe continuing economic depression—on the precipice of chaos, rebellion, and ultimately revolution.” Any violence launched by white Christians and other Obama opponents, Klayman concludes, will be the fault of Obama. [WorldNetDaily, 10/22/2010] Terry Krepel, the progressive founder of the watchdog organization ConWebWatch, writes: “Klayman is projecting. He’s the one who’s injecting race into things by insisting that Obama rules only ‘his people.’” [Terry Krepel, 10/23/2010]

Former campaign coordinator Tim Profitt (left) stands next to Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY) in an undated photo. [Source: Think Progress]The Rand Paul (R-KY) Senate campaign takes out a full-page ad in the Lexington Herald-Leader. The ad features the names of several supporters, including Tim Profitt, the Paul campaign coordinator who stomped the head of a helpless woman at a debate the night before (see October 25, 2010 and After). [Barefoot and Progressive, 10/26/2010] The Paul campaign will also refuse to return a $1,950 campaign donation made by Profitt. [Lexington Courier-Journal, 10/27/2010] Later, the campaign begins distancing itself from Profitt, who will be charged with assault in the incident (see October 26-29, 2010).

Fox News host Sean Hannity accuses President Obama of implementing “failed socialist policies.” Referring to a comment by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who said he wanted Obama’s presidency to fail (see January 16, 2009), Hannity says: “You know what, I don’t want his [Obama’s] policies to succeed. I want him out of—I want him to be a one term president because he’s doing so much damage with his failed socialist policies.” [Media Matters, 11/17/2010]

The man who stomped a woman’s head against the curb of a parking lot in the moments before a Senatorial candidate debate in Kentucky (see October 25, 2010 and After) calls for an apology from the woman he assaulted. Tim Profitt, a former campaign coordinator for the Rand Paul (R-KY) Senate campaign, is facing potential criminal and civil charges on behalf of the woman he assaulted, Lauren Valle. The campaign of Paul’s opponent, Jack Conway (R-KY), has called for Profitt to apologize. But Profitt tells a local television reporter: “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I would like for her to apologize to me, to be honest with you.” Profitt adds, “She’s a professional at what she does, and I think when all the facts come out, I think people will see that she was the one that initiated the whole thing.” Officials for MoveOn.org, the liberal advocacy group with whom Valle is affiliated, are outraged by Profitt’s position. MoveOn official Ilyse Hogan says: “I am offended and outraged by the words of Tim Profitt. Profitt said the attack was ‘not a big deal,’ that Lauren ‘instigated it,’ and that ‘she should apologize’—words that are eerily familiar to many women who have faced assault and abuse.” A spokesman for the Conway campaign, John Collins, says Profitt’s attempts to minimize the assault are inexcusable. “I think anyone who has seen the video could see that it was one-sided and that it was not a crowd-control problem but rather a sort of a mob, thuggish mentality of some of the Rand Paul supporters,” he says. Collins notes that the Paul campaign has not yet released the names of the two men that threw Valle to the ground and held her down as Profitt stepped on her, and continues: “Anyone who watched the video saw two men wrestle a young woman to the ground and then a third man, Profitt, come and stomp on the back of her head. I think the simple question we have is when is it ever okay… for two men to wrestle a young woman down to the ground, even without the stomping.” [WKYT-TV, 10/26/2010; Lexington Courier-Journal, 10/27/2010] Valle later refuses an apology. In an open letter to Profitt, she writes: “I have been called a progressive, a liberal, a professional agitator. You have been called a conservative, a Republican, a member of the tea party movement. Fundamentally and most importantly, you and I are both human beings. We are also both American citizens. These two facts, to me, are far more meaningful than the multitude of labels that we carry. And if these two facts are true then it means we are on the same team. I have not been for one moment angry with you and your actions. Instead I feel thoroughly devastated. It is evident that your physical assault on me is symptomatic of the crisis that this country is struggling through. And it seems that I will heal from my injuries long before this country can work through our separation. Only when we decide let go of our hate, our violence, and our aggression will we be able to communicate to each other about the issues that divide us. Right now, we are not communicating, we are stomping on each other. No one can ever win, no one can ever be heard, with violence. You and I, as fellow citizens, and we, as a country, have a choice. Either we choose to continue the cycle of inflicting violence upon each other, screaming at each other, insulting each other, and putting one another down or we find a way to sit down and start listening to each other. We’ll see how far we get. We are all viciously and vociferously feeding a fire that will only burn us down together. We must reach inside ourselves and make space for each other. We must forgive each other. We must believe in our capacity for transformation. The moment we choose compassion and reconciliation is the moment that we will begin to move toward freedom. There is no other way. I believe that you should be held accountable for your actions but I also recognize the incredibly negative impact that the consequences must be having on your life, and I wish you all the best as you yourself heal from this. Violence hurts everyone.” [TPMDC, 10/29/2010] Profitt is charged with assault against Valle; he will plead not guilty, and his lawyer will claim that his assault was justified (see October 26-29, 2010).

Connecticut State Senate candidates Stuart Norman (left) and Andrew Maynard. [Source: Stonington-Mystic Patch]Connecticut State Senate candidates Stuart Norman, a Republican, and Andrew Maynard, a Democrat, pledge to run a campaign based on civility and courtesy towards one another. Before a debate, Norman and Maynard are seen texting to one another; Norman says, “We’re on speed dial now, Andy and I.” The two candidates decided at the beginning of the race to run a courteous campaign, and have joined to create what they call a “civility tour.” Norman says: “After one of the first events of the campaign, Andy and I got talking in the hallway, and I talked about how a campaign of civility and respect would be good. I said, ‘Andy, you might have better name recognition than me and if the press catches on, it could help me more than you.’ And [Maynard] said, ‘I still want to do it.’ I wouldn’t go as far as saying Andy and I have become good friends, but we respect each other.” The two candidates differ sharply on their ideas for reining in Connecticut’s deficit spending, but they express their views with what a local reporter calls “exceeding polite[ness], displaying conduct rarely associated with politics and government.” Maynard says, “Thoughtful leaders on both sides of the aisle, in both [legislative] houses, working with whoever our new governor may be, need to work together and find out what people expect from their government and what we can reliably deliver.” Whether Maynard or Norman wins, both say they will continue to work together. “I told Andy that if he’s elected I’ll be here the next two years, ready to help,” Norman tells the debate audience. “And I hope all of you will, too, because that really is what democracy is all about.” [The Day, 10/28/2010] Both consent to appear together on Comedy Central’s satirical The Daily Show just before the election. Maynard tells “interviewer” John Oliver: “I guess the message is: Don’t be a jack_ss. It’s kind of sad that this should be remarkable.” Maynard will win the election. [Hartford Courant, 12/9/2010]

US Representative Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) says some of her constituents are so worried about the upcoming reinstatement of federal estate taxes—so-called “death taxes” that impose taxes on estates worth over $3.5 million—that they are planning to discontinue dialysis and other life-extending medical treatments so they can die before December 31. Loomis declines to name anyone who is making such plans. Instead, she says many ranchers and farmers in the state would rather pass along their businesses—“their life’s work,” she says—to their children and grandchildren than see the federal government take a large chunk. “If you have spent your whole life building a ranch, and you wanted to pass your estate on to your children, and you were 88-years-old and on dialysis, and the only thing that was keeping you alive was that dialysis, you might make that same decision,” she tells reporters. Congressional Republicans are fighting to renew the tax cuts on wealthy estates which were implemented during the Bush administration. The cuts exempt large inheritances as well as certain wage income, interest, dividends, and capital gains. In 2009, the tax’s top rate was 45 percent, but estates worth less than $3.5 million, or $7 million in the case of married couples, were exempt. That left less than 1 percent of all estates subject to the tax. Loomis and many Republicans have falsely characterized the tax as negatively impacting family farms and small businesses. The tax cuts are slated to expire in 2011. The exemption will shrink to $1 million and the top rate will rise to 55 percent. Lummis says the children of some people choosing death over taxes told her of their parents’ decision. She refuses to identify them and says it will be their decision to come forward. [Associated Press, 10/29/2010]

Assistant state attorney Andrew Shirvell of Michigan is fired for harassing the student assembly president of the University of Michigan, Chris Armstrong. Armstrong is gay; since April, Shirvell has conducted a campaign of harassment at him over his homosexuality, veracity, and other personal attributes (see April 1 - October 1, 2010). Shirvell maintains he was merely exercising his freedom of speech. Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox fires Shirvell after the first day of a mandatory disciplinary hearing for him. Cox says that Shirvell’s firing comes after a state investigation revealed that Shirvell “repeatedly violated office policies, engaged in borderline stalking behavior, and inappropriately used state resources.” Shirvell also told a number of lies during the disciplinary hearing. Cox adds, “To be clear, I refuse to fire anyone for exercising their First Amendment rights, regardless of how popular or unpopular their positions might be.” Cox says Shirvell crossed the boundaries of free speech when he repeatedly went to Armstrong’s home to verbally abuse him, including one visit at 1:30 a.m. “That incident is especially telling because it clearly was about harassing Mr. Armstrong, not engaging in free speech,” Cox says. Armstrong says Shirvell videotaped a late-night party at his home, appeared on campus with signs calling him a “racist” and a “liar,” and repeatedly vilified him on Internet blogs. Armstrong says the state should revoke Shirvell’s law license. A statement from the attorney general’s office says, “The next step must be a complete retraction of all the malicious lies and fabrications by Mr. Shirvell, and a public apology to Mr. Armstrong, his family and others Mr. Shirvell has slandered.” Shirvell’s lawyer says his client is considering appealing the decision to fire him to the Michigan Civil Service Commission, and says Shirvell believes the decision to fire him was politically motivated. Cox says, “The cumulative effects of his use of state resources, harassing conduct that is not protected by the First Amendment, and his lies during the disciplinary conference all demonstrate adequate evidence of conduct unbecoming a state employee.” Shirvell is prohibited by a restraining order from making physical or verbal contact with Armstrong, nor is he allowed to be in the same place as the student when it’s likely Armstrong will be present. [Associated Press, 11/8/2010]

During a legislative hearing, Tennessee State Representative Curry Todd (R-TN) asks a health official if the state-funded Cover Kids health program, which helps pregnant women obtain prenatal and other child care, checks the immigration status of its patients before offering benefits. The official replies that under federal law the program officials cannot check the citizenship status of its patients seeking prenatal care because all children born in the US are automatically American citizens. Todd then warns that without status checks, immigrants will “go out there like rats and multiply.” No one else on the Fiscal Review Committee challenges his remarks. Todd later tells reporters that he was wrong to use that choice of words, and should have referred to “anchor babies” instead—the term used by some to accuse immigrants of having children in America for the sole purpose of using those children’s citizenship to stay in the country. Immigrant rights advocate Stephen Fotopulos says Todd’s remark is inexcusable. “This kind of dehumanizing rhetoric is all too common on some talk radio shows, where hate sells and there’s no accountability,” Fotopulos says. “But there’s absolutely no excuse for it to come out of the mouth of an elected official in Tennessee.” The progressive news Web site Think Progress calls the term “anchor babies” “unquestionably offensive.” [Associated Press, 11/11/2010; Think Progress, 11/11/2010]

Within hours of Fox News host Glenn Beck’s first broadcast during his three-day tirade against Jewish philanthropist and financier George Soros (see November 9-11, 2010 and After), Jewish organizations begin condemning his remarks. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) accuses Beck of anti-Semitism. ADL president Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, recalls living with a Catholic nanny during the Holocaust and says: “Look, I spit on Jews when I was six years old. Does that make me an anti-Semite?” The issue of the Holocaust, Foxman says, “is so sensitive that I’m not even sure Holocaust survivors themselves are willing to make such judgments. For a political commentator or entertainer to have the audacity to say, ‘There’s a Jewish boy sending Jews to death camps,’ that’s horrific. It’s totally off limits and over the top.” Beck is speaking “either out of total ignorance or total insensitivity,” Foxman says, and adds in a statement: “While I, too, may disagree with many of Soros’s views and analysis on the issues, to bring in this kind of innuendo about his past is unacceptable. To hold a young boy responsible for what was going on around him during the Holocaust as part of a larger effort to denigrate the man is repugnant. The Holocaust was a horrific time, and many people had to make excruciating choices to ensure their survival. George Soros has been forthright about his childhood experiences and his family’s history, and there the matter should rest.” Elan Steinberg of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants calls the Beck accusations “monstrous; you don’t make such accusations without proof, and I have seen no such proof.” Beck’s accusations, Steinberg says, “go to the heart of the instrumentalization and trivialization of the Holocaust.” Simon Greer, president of the Jewish Funds for Justice, says that Beck’s comments “made a mockery of their professed understanding. In an effort to demonize a political opponent, Beck and Fox News scurrilously attacked George Soros, a prominent Jewish philanthropist and Holocaust survivor. No one who truly understands ‘the sensitivity and sacred nature’ of the Holocaust would deliberately and grotesquely mis-characterize the experience of a 13-year-old Jew in Nazi-occupied Hungary whose father hid him with a non-Jewish family to keep him alive.” Interfaith Alliance head C. Welton Gaddy says Beck’s “use of the Holocaust to discredit George Soros is beyond repugnant. The Holocaust is one of history’s most tragic events and those who survived it are owed our enduring respect.” [The Jewish Week, 11/11/2010; Salon, 11/11/2010] The ADL’s Foxman has previously lauded Beck as a “strong… friend of Israel.” [KMIR, 11/13/2010] Jewish columnist J.J. Goldberg writes, “There’s a difference between first-degree murder and vehicular homicide, which is intentionality.” Goldberg isn’t convinced that Beck intended to attack Jews, but he calls Beck’s three-day attack on Soros “as close as I’ve heard on mainstream television to fascism.” [Daily Beast, 11/11/2010] Jewish columnist M.J. Rosenberg writes that Beck’s series on Soros is “so anti-Semitic” that it has convinced him a Holocaust could happen in the United States. “I am not saying Beck is anti-Semitic,” he says. “I think he is so utterly ignorant of Jewish history and the history of Germany 1933-1945 that he is unaware of what he is doing.” [Raw Story, 11/11/2010] Jonathan Tobin, the editor of the neoconservative Commentary magazine, has criticized Soros before. But Tobin now writes: “Beck is in no position to pontificate about the conduct of Holocaust survivors and should refrain from even commenting about this subject.… Such topics really must be off-limits, even in the take-no-prisoners world of contemporary punditry.… There is much to criticize about George Soros’s career, and his current political activities are troubling. But Beck’s denunciation of him is marred by ignorance and offensive innuendo. Instead of providing sharp insight into a shady character, all Beck has done is further muddy the waters and undermine his own credibility as a commentator.” [Christian Science Monitor, 11/13/2010]Fox Defends Beck - Fox News stands by Beck’s attack on Soros, with senior vice president Joel Cheatwood saying in a statement that the “information regarding Mr. Soros’s experiences growing up were taken directly from his writings and from interviews given by him to the media, and no negative opinion was offered as to his actions as a child.” [New York Times, 11/11/2010]Beck's References to Holocaust and Nazi Germany Source of Concern - Greer and two rabbis met with Fox News executives in July to discuss Beck’s “constant and often inappropriate invocation of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany on the air” (see July 26, 2010). [The Jewish Week, 11/11/2010] Greer accuses Beck and Fox News of “mak[ing] a mockery of their commitment to me and two rabbis” by airing the attack on Soros, and defends Soros as committed to the Jewish faith. Greer writes that he will again complain to Fox News executives about Beck’s behavior. [Jewish Journal, 11/11/2010]Beck Attempting to Tarnish Soros as a Democratic Contributor? - James Besser, writing for The Jewish Week, asks: “Why is Soros important to the far right? Could it be because he is a major contributor to Democratic causes, and because they are trying to make his money radioactive to their political adversaries?” [The Jewish Week, 11/11/2010]

Glenn Beck uses a chalkboard to connect billionaire George Soros to numerous events and organizations. [Source: Open Salon (.com)]Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck spends three broadcast days lambasting Jewish billionaire George Soros, whom Beck blames for single-handedly funding America’s left-wing, liberal, and progressive causes. Beck calls Soros a “puppet master” responsible for spreading political and economic chaos throughout the world. Soros was a teenager in Hungary when the Nazis invaded that country; Soros spent a brief period of time hiding with a non-Jewish Hungarian family whose father handed out deportation notices to Hungarian Jews. Soros has written of this incident in his biography; Beck uses that fact to label Soros as a Nazi collaborator. [Salon, 11/11/2010; Atlantic Wire, 11/12/2010; Cenk Uygur, 11/13/2010] Beck tells his audience that Soros “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off. And George Soros was part of it. He would help confiscate the stuff. It was frightening. Here’s a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps. And I am certainly not saying that George Soros enjoyed that, even had a choice. I mean, he’s 14 years old. He was surviving. So I’m not making a judgment. That’s between him and God. As a 14-year-old boy, I don’t know what you would do. I don’t know what you would do. But you would think that there would be some remorse as an 80-year-old man or a 40-year-old man or a 20-year-old man, when it was all over, you would do some soul searching and say: ‘What did I do? What did I do?’” On his radio show, Beck goes farther, accusing Soros of helping “send the Jews” to “death camps” during the Holocaust. Beck goes on to add that Soros “is not a fan of the state of Israel. George Soros is—many people would call him an anti-Semite. I will not. I don’t know enough about all of his positions on Jews. I know his mother, in George Soros’s own words, his mother was an anti-Semite. And so he just has this weird, weird world view. He’s also an atheist.” [The Jewish Week, 11/11/2010; Media Matters, 11/11/2010] Beck goes on to accuse Soros of deliberately manipulating the global economy to ensure its collapse and says Soros wants to rule the world like a god: “Soros has admitted in the past he doesn’t believe in God, but that’s perhaps because he thinks he is.” [Daily Beast, 11/11/2010] “Eighty years ago, George Soros was born,” Beck says. “Little did the world know then, economies would collapse, currencies would become worthless, elections would be stolen, regimes would fall. And one billionaire would find himself coincidentally at the center of it all.” [Salon, 11/9/2010] Salon’s Alex Pareene writes: “I don’t think people who read secondhand accounts of the specials—or even those who read the transcripts—can grasp how weird and shameless the entire spectacle was. There were puppets strewn about the set. The camera always watches Beck watching whatever we’re supposed to be watching. Beck blatantly flirted with classic anti-Semitic tropes, knowing he’d be called on it but confident his friends would have his back. His taunting response to criticism: If he’s a lying anti-Semite, why would Rupert Murdoch [the owner of News Corp., which owns Fox News] allow him on the air?” [Salon, 11/13/2010]Beck: Soros Attempting to Destroy Global Economy - Jewish author and columnist Michelle Goldberg calls Beck’s “tirade” against Soros “a new low on American television.” She writes: “The program… was a symphony of anti-Semitic dog-whistles. Nothing like it has ever been on American television before.” Goldberg writes: “Beck went beyond demonizing him; he cast him as the protagonist in an updated Protocols of the Elders of Zion [an infamous anti-Semitic screed]. He described Soros as the most powerful man on earth, the creator of a ‘shadow government’ that manipulates regimes and currencies for its own enrichment. [President] Obama is his ‘puppet,’ Beck says. Soros has even ‘infiltrated the churches.’ He foments social unrest and economic distress so he can bring down governments, all for his own financial gain. ‘Four times before,’ Beck warned. ‘We’ll be number five.’” Beck is misrepresenting Soros’s support for organizations that have helped to overthrow Communist regimes in former Soviet Union nations. Goldberg writes: “Beck’s implication is that there was something sinister in Soros’ support for anti-communist civil society organizations in the former Soviet Union. Further, he sees such support as evidence that Soros will engineer a Communist coup here in the United States. This kind of thinking only makes sense within the conspiratorial mind-set of classic anti-Semitism, in which Jews threaten all governments equally. And as a wealthy Jew with a distinct Eastern European accent, Soros is a perfect target for such theories.” [Daily Beast, 11/11/2010] Ron Chusid, writing for the blog Liberal Values, notes: “Glenn Beck often repeats conspiracy theories from the Birchers [meaning the John Birch Society—see March 10, 1961 and December 2011 ] and other far right wing groups. That made it inevitable that he would wander into repeating anti-Semitic memes which have historically been common on the far right.” [Ron Chusid, 11/11/2010] “How much worse can it get when one links the other to anti-Semitism and Nazism?” asks Brad Knickerbocker of the Christian Science Monitor. “And how much weirder can it get when the target of that charge escaped the Holocaust as a young Jewish teenager?” [Christian Science Monitor, 11/13/2010]Beck Denies Anti-Semitism - Beck denies any anti-Semitism on his part. Instead, Beck accuses Soros of being anti-Semitic, and uses his time of hiding with the Hungarian family as “proof” of his hatred of Jews, and his “collaboration” with Nazis. [Daily Beast, 11/11/2010] “I’m going to concentrate on the fact that I think the lesson he learned in that horrific year of 1944 is if you hide your true identity you can gain power, you can survive,” Beck says. “And those who are seen as disadvantaged or handicapped and don’t hide their identity, well, they don’t survive.” The accusations of Soros being a “collaborator” actually began in 1998, after Soros discussed his successful escape from Nazi persecution on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Although the accusations were quickly proven false, right-wing opponents of Soros have continued to air them in an attempt to discredit the billionaire (see August 8, 2006 and February 2007). [Media Matters, 11/11/2010]Jewish Organizations Condemn Beck - Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, and the Jewish Funds for Justice call Beck’s accusations “monstrous” and “horrific.” However, Fox News defends Beck’s comments (see November 9-11, 2010 and After).

Roger Ailes, a powerful Republican campaign consultant (see 1968, January 25, 1988, and September 21 - October 4, 1988) and the founder and chairman of Fox News (see October 7, 1996), calls President Obama a “socialist,” and says the campaign contributions by Fox News’s parent company are legal and ethical. Of Obama, Ailes says: “The president has not been very successful. He just got kicked from Mumbai to South Korea, and he came home and attacked Republicans for it. He had to be told by the French and the Germans that his socialism was too far left for them to deal with.… He just has a different belief system than most Americans.” Fox News does not “single out” Obama for criticism, Ailes claims, but is merely “more direct” in its reporting. Ailes says Fox is correct in painting Obama as an anti-American who harbors secret sympathies for Islamist terrorists; it is the other news outlets that fear to report the “truth.” Most of the press is “in love” with Obama, he says. Ailes says Fox’s ratings boost since the Obama election (see November 4, 2008) has nothing to do with the network’s relentless criticism of Obama and the White House. Fox currently leads both of its cable news competitors, CNN and MSNBC, in ratings. He says that he was “totally surprised” when Fox News’s parent, News Corporation (often abbreviated NewsCorp), donated $2 million to Republican campaign organizations (see June 24, 2010 and After and September 30, 2010), but says NewsCorp owner Rupert Murdoch has the right to donate money to whichever organization or candidate he chooses. As for criticism of the donations, Ailes says he knew that “lefties would use it to immediately try to damage Fox News.” [Daily Beast, 11/16/2010] Fox News commentators and hosts have frequently tarred Obama and his advisors as socialists, “Stalinists,” and “Marxists” (see October 27, 2008, January 2009, March 17, 2009, March 29, 2009, April 1-2, 2009, May 13, 2009, May 28, 2009, September 1, 2009, January 27, 2010, May 19, 2010, September 18, 2010, September 29, 2010, and October 26, 2010).

Roger Ailes. [Source: All Access (.com)]Roger Ailes, the former Republican campaign guru who now heads Fox News, calls National Public Radio (NPR) officials “Nazis” for firing NPR and Fox News commentator Juan Williams; Williams recently made comments about Muslims that some, including NPR officials, took as racist. Of the NPR executives who fired Williams, Ailes says: “They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.” (Air America is the now-defunct radio network that featured liberals and progressive talk show hosts and commentators.) Ailes also says that Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, who has castigated Fox News host Glenn Beck for his routine invocation of Nazis in discussing the Obama administration (see October 3, 2010), should be “beheaded” for his writings. (He then claims he is merely joking.) Interviewer Howard Kurtz calls Ailes’s evocation of Nazis “disproportionate to the situation.” NPR spokeswoman Anna Christopher says, “[W]e will let Mr. Ailes’s words speak for themselves.” [The Daily Beast, 11/17/2010] Ailes issues something of an apology, not to NPR or its executives, but to Abraham Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League. Ailes explains, “I was of course ad-libbing and should not have chosen that word, but I was angry at the time because of NPR’s willingness to censor Juan Williams for not being liberal enough.” Ailes writes that he should have used the term “nasty, inflexible bigot” instead of “Nazi” to describe the NPR officials who fired Williams. Foxman says in a statement: “I welcome Roger Ailes’s apology, which is as sincere as it is heartfelt. Nazi comparisons of this nature are clearly inappropriate and offensive. While I wish Roger had never invoked that terminology, I appreciate his efforts to immediately reach out and to retract his words before they did any further harm.” [New York Times, 11/18/2010]

Siriun XM logo. [Source: Reuters]Talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who recently promised to leave the airwaves after repeatedly using the racial slur “n_igger” in conversation with an African-American woman (see August 10-18, 2010), announces that she will not leave the airwaves. Instead, Schlessinger is moving her syndicated radio show from the broadcast milieu to satellite radio. Schlessinger has signed a “multiyear deal” with Sirius XM Radio, according to a spokesperson. Schlessinger has repeatedly said she would be leaving the airwaves after her tirade, accusing her critics of “persecuting” her and denying her right to freedom of speech (see September 7, 2010 and September 8, 2010). Her broadcast program will end on Friday, December 31, 2010. Her Sirius XM show will begin the following Tuesday, January 3, 2011. Schlessinger explains why she chose to go with Sirius XM instead of leaving the airwaves: “The first and most important thing that appealed to me was the freedom to speak my mind without advertisers and affiliates being attacked by activist groups that just love to censor anything they don’t agree with,” she says. “That just about made my heart and head explode.” She cites pressure from the progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters as driving her initial decision to leave radio (see August 13, 2010). She says she is sure her new show will offend some people. Michael Harrison of the trade publication Talkers says, “She will have far less listeners now, but she will be able to superserve her core [audience] with less compromise.” He says Schlessinger may do better on satellite radio since “since she appears to be more thin-skinned than most personalities in talk radio, although professionally she’d be better off with a combination of satellite and terrestrial radio.” Media Matters official Ari Rabin-Havt says her show will remain fundamentally the same. “Her influence and her ability to impact a wide audience has clearly decreased,” he says. [Associated Press, 11/26/2010; Media Matters, 11/27/2010]

Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee Joe Lieberman (I-CT) expresses doubts about designating WikiLeaks a foreign terrorist organization. Responding to a question on the Imus in the Morning radio show about a proposal from Representative Peter King (R-NY) to make such designation, Lieberman says: “Normally, we reserve that designation for groups that fit the traditional definition of terrorism, which is that they are using violence to achieve a political end.… While it’s true that what WikiLeaks did may result in damage to some people… it’s not al-Qaeda.” However, Lieberman does not rule out supporting the proposal, adding, “I want to talk to Pete and figure out what he’s got in mind.” In addition, he says that the group’s release of thousands of US documents over the past year is a “terrible thing,” and expresses the hope that “we are doing everything we can to take down their Web site.” [Hill, 11/29/2010]

Staff from the office of Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) contact the Internet retailer Amazon to ask about its hosting of WikiLeaks’ website. Lieberman is chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. [Guardian, 12/1/2010] His staff learns of the hosting from media accounts and leaves a series of questions, including, “Are there plans to take the site down,” with Amazon’s press secretary. [Talking Points Memo, 12/1/2010] The next day, Amazon will remove the website from its servers (see December 2, 2010).

The Internet retailer Amazon cancels WikiLeaks’ server account, removing its website from its servers. The move follows pressure from Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee (see December 1, 2010). As a result, the WikiLeaks website is inaccessible for a time, but it soon moves to servers in Sweden. The announcement that Amazon has got rid of WikiLeaks is also made by Lieberman, who adds that the “decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.” Amazon attributes the break between the two organizations to a terms of service violation by WikiLeaks. However, WikiLeaks expresses disappointment with Amazon, saying in a post on Twitter that if Amazon is “so uncomfortable with the First Amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.” [Guardian, 12/1/2010]

The US has been conducting airstrikes against suspected terrorists in Yemen, but denying responsibility for them, according to cables provided by the whistleblower organization Wikileaks to the British daily The Guardian. The bombings are being attributed to local forces rather than the US in an attempt not to rile Arab public opinion. The Guardian breaks the story based on a number of cables provided by Wikileaks, which contain damning quotes. In a September 2009 cable Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh told US President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, John Brennan, “I have given you an open door on terrorism, so I am not responsible.” Following a strike that killed multiple civilians carried out by the US, but attributed to Yemenis in December 2009, US Ambassador to Yemen Stephen Seche cabled Washington to say: “Yemen insisted it must ‘maintain the status quo’ regarding the official denial of US involvement. Saleh wanted operations to continue ‘non-stop until we eradicate this disease.’” Just over a week later, Saleh told General David Petraeus, then head of US Central Command, “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.” This prompted the deputy prime minister, Rashad al-Alimi, who was also at the meeting, to joke that he had just “lied” by telling parliament the bombs in Arhab, Abyan, and Shebwa (the alleged al-Qaeda strongholds) were American-made but deployed by Yemen. In addition to the secret bombings, the Yemen-related cables published by The Guardian on this day deal with Yemeni reluctance to meet some US demands, the inaccuracy of some US weapons, large payments to be made by the US to Yemen, the Saudi Arabian reaction to the strikes, poor counterterrorism training for staff at Yemeni airports, Yemen’s unwillingness to share information about Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, alleged to be an al-Qaeda bomb-maker, and poor counterterrorist infrastructure in Yemen. [Guardian, 12/3/2010] Before the “war on terror,” the last time the US bombed a country in secret was during the Vietnam War, when the US bombed Cambodia (see March 15-17, 1969). It was a New York Times report on the bombing that was one of the spurs behind President Richard Nixon’s formation of the later-infamous “plumbers” unit (see May 9-10, 1969).

The Library of Congress blocks access to WikiLeaks’ website across its computer systems, including those operated by library users in reading rooms. The library puts out a statement saying that users should not access documents regarded as classified, even if the documents are placed in the public domain through leaking. “The library decided to block Wikileaks because applicable law obligates federal agencies to protect classified information,” says the library. “Unauthorized disclosures of classified documents do not alter the documents’ classified status or automatically result in declassification of the documents.” [Matt Raymond, 12/3/2010]

The Guardian publishes a cable drafted by US Ambassador to Tunisia Robert F. Godec in July 2009 containing a description of a meal with Mohammad Sakher El Materi, the son-in-law of Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, and his wife Nesrine Ben Ali El Materi. The Guardian obtained the cable through its agreement with WikiLeaks. The cable is primarily a description of El Materi’s political views, which coincide with US positions in some respects. However, there are also descriptions of the couple’s lifestyle. The dinner is called “lavish,” and the ambassador comments that El Materi is “living, however, in the midst of great wealth and excess, illustrating one reason resentment of President Ben Ali’s in-laws is increasing.” Godec also gives a desciption of El Materi’s home, which is “spacious,” “includes an infinity pool,” and has “ancient artifacts everywhere.” In addition, El Materi “hopes to move into his new (and palatial) house in Sidi Bou Said in eight to 10 months.” Further, there is a description of the meal, which included “perhaps a dozen dishes, including fish, steak, turkey, octopus, fish couscous, and much more.” Most startlingly: “After dinner, he served ice cream and frozen yoghurt he brought in by plane from Saint Tropez, along with blueberries and raspberries and fresh fruit and chocolate cake. (NB. El Materi and Nesrine had just returned from Saint Tropez on their private jet after two weeks vacation…).” El Materi also has a large tiger on his compound, which reminded the ambassador “of Uday Hussein’s lion cage in Baghdad.” Godec’s final comment is: “The opulence with which El Materi and Nesrine live and their behavior make clear why they and other members of Ben Ali’s family are disliked and even hated by some Tunisians. The excesses of the Ben Ali family are growing.” [Guardian, 12/7/2010]

The Guardian publishes a cable drafted by US Ambassador to Tunisia Robert F. Godec in July 2009 containing a very candid assessment of the current Tunisian regime. The Guardian obtained the cable through its agreement with WikiLeaks. According to the cable, Tunisia should be a US ally, but is not, because of big problems in the form of “aging” President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, his “sclerotic regime,” the lack of a successor and political freedom, First Family corruption, high unemployment, regional inequalities, and the fact that Tunisia is a “police state.” Perhaps the most startling passage in the cable refers to Ben Ali’s wife: “Tunisians intensely dislike, even hate, First Lady Leila Trabelsi and her family. In private, regime opponents mock her; even those close to the government express dismay at her reported behavior.” Some portions of the cable are redacted; the context indicates they contain the names of pro-democracy leaders in contact with the embassy. [Guardian, 12/7/2010]

Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros warns a gathering in New York that the combination of Fox News, Fox talk show host Glenn Beck, the US “tea parties,” and what he calls Americans’ propensity to fantasize unrealistically about their political system may lead “this open society to be on the verge of some dictatorial democracy.” Soros makes his remarks in conversation with CNN host Fareed Zakaria at an International Crisis Center dinner in honor of Soros. The billionaire, often vilified by Beck and others for being a supporter of progressive and liberal causes (see November 9-11, 2010 and After), names George Orwell’s novel 1984 as a possible precursor to the future face of American society; the novel satirized the Communist system of absolute control over society and politics. Soros is harsh in his criticisms of Fox News and its role in American political discourse, saying that it is a threat to American open society. He characterizes Beck as, in the words of Forbes writer Robert Lenzner, “a throwback to the wild and crazy radical elements that never before were given such a public pedestal to foment their hate.” [Forbes, 12/7/2010]

Bryan Fischer. [Source: Renew America (.com)]Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis for government and public policy at the American Family Association (AFA), says that the criticism of the WikiLeaks cables proves that gays shouldn’t be allowed to serve in the US military. Fischer claims that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is actively promoting what he calls the “homosexual” agenda, and says Private Bradley Manning, who is in custody after being linked to State Department cables leaked by Wikileaks, may have “sold out his country in what may turn out to be fit of gay pique.” Fischer accuses Manning of being “seriously confused about his sexuality,” and says he may have “launched the WikiLeaks campaign to strike back at the military for its ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, which he vehemently opposed.” Manning, Fischer writes, is “a one-man argument for keeping open homosexuals from serving in the military in the first place. If the 1993 law—which flatly prohibits homosexuals from a place in the armed services—had been followed, there would be no PFC Bradley Manning and no WikiLeaks.” Fischer shows no evidence that Manning’s actions were sparked by any antipathy towards the military’s ban on gays. Recently the Southern Poverty Law Center cited Fischer’s anti-gay writings when it labeled the AFA a “hate group.” In previous blog posts and on his radio talk show, Fischer has blamed Nazism on homosexuality, has proposed criminalizing homosexual activity, and has advocated forcing gays into “reparative” therapy. He opposes funding AIDS research because, he has written, “we know the cause, we know the cure: stop engaging in homosexual sex and stop shooting up with drugs.” He has also equated homosexuality with domestic terrorism. [Bryan Fischer, 12/7/2010; Raw Story, 12/10/2010]

The government of Tunisia prevents its citizens from accessing the website of the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar, which has republished US embassy cables about the current Tunisian regime. The cables were first published earlier in the day by The Guardian (see December 7, 2010 and December 7, 2010), which obtained them from WikiLeaks. The content of the cables is controversial because they contain candid assessments of Tunisia’s situation and deep-seated public anger about the ruling elite grouped around President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and its opulent lifestyle. [Guardian, 12/1/2010]

An anonymous Kremlin official suggests that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Following US criticism of Assange after Wikileaks began to release US diplomatic cables, the official tells the state news agency RIA Novosti: “[N]on-governmental and governmental organizations should think of ways to help him. Perhaps he could be awarded a Nobel prize.” [Haaretz, 12/8/2010]

The Guardian publishes a US diplomatic cable about the situation in Zimbabwe. [Guardian, 12/8/2010; Atlantic Monthly, 12/28/2010] The newspaper obtained the cable, dated December 24, 2009, from the whistleblower organization Wikileaks. The text, drafted by the US embassy in Harare for the State Department in Washington, is based on a conversation with Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and relates attempts by forces opposed to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to ease him out of power. Tsvangirai complains about Mugabe dragging his feet over the implementation of agreements, admits that “his public statements calling for easing of sanctions” have come into conflict with “his private conversations saying they must be kept in place,” and observes that Mugabe “appears old and very tired.” The Guardian appears to think this last quote is the most interesting, as it is highlighted in yellow in the text of the cable and is also incorporated into the headline. [Guardian, 12/8/2010]

Wikileaks publishes a leaked US cable about the situation in Zimbabwe that will later become the subject of controversy. The cable is first published in the form of a bit torrent file and then on the organization’s website. Approximately one hour before Wikileaks publishes the cable, it had been published by The Guardian (see 9:30 p.m. December 8, 2010). [Atlantic Monthly, 12/28/2010]

Lieutenant Colonel Terry Lakin, who has refused to obey orders deploying him to Afghanistan because, he says, he questions President Obama’s citizenship and therefore his right to issue orders to the military (see Before April 13, 2010), is convicted of disobeying orders from his lawful superior officers. In a court-martial, a military jury finds Lakin guilty of the specific charge of “missing movement by design.” His lawyers had argued that Lakin should be convicted only on lesser charges. He has already pled guilty to another charge that included not meeting with a superior when ordered to do so and not reporting for duty at Fort Campbell. During his trial, Lakin told the jury that he would “gladly deploy” if Obama’s original birth certificate were released and proved authentic (see June 13, 2008, August 21, 2008, October 30, 2008, and July 28, 2009). He could be sentenced to up to 42 months in prison, but the jury sentences him to six months in prison and dishonorably discharges him from the Army. He also forfeits his pension. During the sentencing phase of his trial, a tearful Lakin tells the jury: “I don’t want [my career] to end this way. I want to continue to serve.… It crushed me not to be on deployment. I can be on a plane tomorrow. I’d truly do that.” Before his trial, Lakin issued a belligerent press statement saying he “invited” the court-martial and refused to deploy until Obama “proved” his citizenship (see April 22-23, 2010). During the trial, prosecutors played a March 30, 2010 YouTube video by Lakin that accused Obama of “subvert[ing] law and truth” and ordered Obama to “release your original, signed birth certificate—if you have one.” Lakin also released a second video in July accusing the Army of convicting him “without a trial” (see July 17, 2010). During sentencing, Lakin called the March video an embarrassing mistake, brought on by pressure and poor advice from supposed supporters (see April 22-23, 2010, August 2, 2010 and August 31, 2010). “I would not do this again,” he said. “It was a confusing time for me, and I was very emotional. I thought I was choosing the right path, and I did not.… I thought this was such an important question that I had to get an answer. I thought I was upholding the Army values by questioning this… but I was wrong.” During the proceedings, “birthers” in the gallery repeatedly interrupt with applause at references to Obama’s birth certificate, and can be heard calling the trial “disgusting.” They also hand out pamphlets with a picture of Obama labeled “usurper” and “ineligible.” [TPM Muckraker, 12/14/2010; Stars and Stripes, 12/15/2010; Associated Press, 12/16/2010]

A portion of the White House vegetable garden. [Source: Susty (.com)]Michael Reagan, a right-wing author and talk-show host, writes a column for the conservative news Web site NewsMax advising women to rebel against the agenda of “radical feminism” and get back to the traditional roles he believes they should adopt, beginning with a return to the kitchen. Reagan says that the US is “a nation whose distaff leadership is allowing radical feminists to redefine the role of motherhood,” and blames “a raging cadre of radical feminists” who “ostracize” mothers “should they dare to consider cooking for their families to be a major part of their traditional role as wives and mothers.” These “radical feminists” want women working at fast-food restaurants, Reagan claims, and not cooking for their families. Reagan then attacks First Lady Michelle Obama, who has become known for turning part of the White House lawn into a vegetable garden, as the Obama administration’s “food czar who instructs us on what chow is good for us and our children, who should cook it, and what foods should be kept off the national menu.” Reagan then writes, “Mothers are looked at with withering stares should they teach their daughters how to cook, and fathers get the same treatment if they concern themselves with their daughters’ future role as wives and mothers.” Reagan advises mothers to begin teaching their daughters to be the “family chef,” and fathers to “honor… and cherish” the family’s women “for making the kitchen one of their principal domains.” If this would happen, Reagan observes, “we’d be a lot better off.” However, something else is happening, with Michelle Obama “instruct[ing] us on what victuals we should eat,… warn[ing] us that the menu at the local fast-food emporium is the diet from hell,” and “dig[ging] up patches of the White House lawn [to plant] the seeds of what she tells us are the staples of a healthy diet—a diet regimen in the White House kitchens one doubts includes whatever puny edibles grown on the lawn of the Executive Mansion.” Reagan writes, “If she and her fellow radical feminists would devote more time to praising and defending the produce that farmers and retailers bring us, and less time playing the role as diet dictators, meals would be family celebrations instead of burdensome chores for the moms who cook them.” After lauding “tasty” fast-food meals as a “gift” a family can occasionally bequeath on a mother who spends most of her time cooking for her family, Reagan concludes: “A happy home is one in which moms teach their daughters how to cook tasty meals for their future families and dads teach their sons that one of their roles in family life is drying the dishes and otherwise doing chores around the house to lighten mom’s burdens. [W]omen should understand and act on the time-honored truth that the fastest route to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and not always through the drive-in window at the nearest fast-food restaurant. That’s one way we can begin to put the family—and America—back together.” [NewsMax, 12/17/2010] As of October 2010, the “puny” White House garden has produced, according to an analysis by The Week, “thousands of pounds of produce that has gone to feed the Obama family, White House guests, and the needy at a local food shelter. The first lady has also used the project [to] educate children about the benefits of fresh food.” The garden is 1,500 square feet in size, grows 55 different kinds of vegetables and other foodstuffs, uses no synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, produced over 1,000 pounds of food in 2009 and over 1,600 pounds of food in 2010, and was inspired by former President Thomas Jefferson’s garden at Monticello, Virginia. The White House garden also contains a beehive, which as of October 2010 had produced some 134 pounds of honey. [The Week, 10/22/2010]

US Vice President Joseph Biden calls Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a “high-tech terrorist” on NBC’s Meet the Press. The interview was taped two days previously, but is broadcast on this day. Asked if he sees Assange as closer to a hi-tech terrorist than the whistleblower who released the Pentagon Papers (see March 1971) in the 1970s, Biden replies: “I would argue it is closer to being a hi-tech terrorist than the Pentagon Papers. But, look, this guy has done things that have damaged and put in jeopardy the lives and occupations of people in other parts of the world.” Biden adds: “He’s made it more difficult for us to conduct our business with our allies and our friends. For example, in my meetings—you know I meet with most of these world leaders—there is a desire now to meet with me alone, rather than have staff in the room. It makes things more cumbersome—so it has done damage.” Asked if the administration could prevent further leaks, Biden comments, “The Justice Department is taking a look at that.” Biden goes on to suggest that if Assange facilitated the leak of the documents by colluding with the whilstleblower who provided them, thought to be former intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, he could be open to prosecution. “If he conspired to get these classified documents with a member of the US military that is fundamentally different than if someone drops on your lap… you are a press person, here is classified material.” Biden’s comments show an increased level of annoyance in the administration with Wikileaks. For example, the day before this interview was taped, Biden had expressed different sentiments. “I don’t think there’s any substantive damage,” he had commented then. [Guardian, 12/19/2010]

Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis for government and public policy at the American Family Association (AFA), accuses the Obama administration of planning to give the entire North American landmass to Native American tribes. Fischer is reacting to a recent announcement by President Obama that the US will sign a non-binding United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, which has been endorsed by 145 countries. The declaration states that “indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories, and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied, or otherwise used or acquired,” and nations “shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories, and resources.” Fischer writes that Obama “wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords.” He continues, “Perhaps he figures that, as an adopted Crow Indian, he will be the new chief over this revived Indian empire.” [Raw Story, 12/22/2010]

Hawaiian Governor Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) says he is “incensed” over the so-called “birther” conspiracy theory that asserts President Obama was born in a foreign land and not, as documents have proven, in Honolulu (see June 13, 2008, June 27, 2008, July 2008, August 21, 2008, October 30, 2008, July 1, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, and July 29, 2009). Abercrombie knew Obama’s parents when they attended university in Hawaii, and remembers seeing Obama as a baby when his parents took him to social events. He says he wants to change state policy to allow him to release additional proof that the president was born in Honolulu in 1961. “It’s an insult to his mother and to his father, and I knew his mother and father; they were my friends, and I have an emotional interest in that,” Abercrombie says. “It’s an emotional insult. It is disrespectful to the president; it is disrespectful to the office.” Abercrombie says he has talked to Hawaii’s attorney general and the chief of the Department of Health about how he can release more explicit documentation of Obama’s birth. “He’s a big boy; he can take sticks and stones. But there’s no reason on earth to have the memory of his parents insulted by people whose motivation is solely political. Let’s put this particular canard to rest.” He acknowledges that no matter what he does, some will remain unconvinced. Some of those critics, Abercrombie says, are engaging in a “demonological fantasy” about Obama’s birth. Referring to efforts in several state legislatures to force presidential candidates to produce authentic birth certificates (see February 14-27, 2011), he says, “[I]t is very difficult for me not to conclude that bills like that are meant as a coded message that he is not really American.” [New York Times, 12/24/2010] Abercrombie will abandon his attempt to procure the “explicit” documentation, presumably the “long form” certificate kept on file in Hawaii’s state records (see July 1, 2009), because Hawaii’s attorney general will inform him that the law precludes his disclosing any such information without the person in question’s explicit consent. “There is nothing more that Governor Abercrombie can do within the law to produce a document,” Abercrombie spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz will say. [St. Petersburg Times, 2/27/2011]

Controversial Mecklenburg County (North Carolina) Commissioner Bill James calls homosexuals “sexual predators,” drawing a wave of criticism. James engages in an email exchange with fellow commissioners about the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy, which basically allows gays to serve in the military if they stay quiet about their sexual orientation. “Homosexuals are sexual predators,” James writes. “Allowing homosexuals to serve in the US military with the endorsement of the Mecklenburg County Commission ignores a host of serious problems related to maintaining US military readiness and effectiveness, not the least of which is the current Democrat plan to allow homosexuals (male and female) to share showers with those they are attracted to.” James, a Republican, has a long history of vilifying homosexuals (see April 29, 2005), including a recent attack on fellow commissioner, Vilma Leake, over the loss of her son to AIDS (see December 17, 2009). James blames fellow commissioner Jennifer Roberts, the chair of the County Commission, for “making” him launch his latest attack on homosexuals. “People are entitled to their opinion, and that includes me,” James says. “I don’t expect people to [always] agree with me. It’s a political discussion and I wouldn’t have raised it on my own, but Jennifer decided to wade in on it.” Change.org, a national organization for progressive social change, is collecting signatures on a petition asking the Mecklenburg County Commission to censure James. Roberts says she has not spoken to other commissioners about James. “The challenge is everyone recognizes that it’s inappropriate language,” she says. “This is a repeat performance and I just don’t know if it helps or hurts the end goal by making any kind of formal statement.” In response to the controversy, James sends out a mass email further vilifying homosexuals (see December 30, 2010). James has attacked other groups as well as homosexuals: in 2004, he accused urban blacks of living in what he called a “moral sewer,” and in 2008 compared illegal immigrants to drug dealers and prostitutes. [Charlotte Observer, 12/31/2010; Andy Towle, 12/31/2010]

Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James responds to criticism of his recent characterization of homosexuals as “sexual predators” (see Late December 2010) by sending out a mass email further vilifying homosexuals. He then posts the email on his Web site. In a letter titled “Red Phone,” James says that YMCAs across America have had to implement procedures to “prevent homosexuals from preying on men,” and says that since the Obama administration has repealed the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, Congress must develop rules “to protect young heterosexual military members from predatory behavior” by gays. James writes: “[L]ike a whore in church, homosexuals have been on their best behavior because that behavior was illegal and they didn’t want to risk being kicked out.… I can hear liberals screaming into their monitors, ‘They aren’t predators!’ I disagree. Go down to the Dowd YMCA and let them show you the ‘red phone.’ They had to put it in to stop homosexuals from ogling straight business men in the showers and changing rooms.” James is referring to a YMCA in Charlotte, North Carolina; there is no evidence that the Dowd YMCA or any other YMCA facilty has anything similar to James’s “red phone.” He also claims, without presenting evidence, that Mecklenberg County spent “big bucks” redesigning a local park so that it would not attract homosexuals. “Repealing DADT was a left-wing political move made before Christmas by a lame-duck Democrat Congress,” he writes. “That vote comes with some severe consequences for military readiness. The left-wing of America and radical homosexuals will be out in force to try and prevent any rules that would protect [heterosexual soldiers]. Young kids who enlist will become sexual targets in the new US military.” He concludes by citing an unattributed letter he claims to have received that states in part, “I am afraid that from now on, in the military, I will be punished for speaking up now that immoral conduct is condoned.” [Bill James, 12/30/2010 ; LBGTQ Nation, 12/31/2010] James has a long history of attacking and vilifying homosexuals (see April 29, 2005 and December 17, 2009).

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